The ecology of poaching Just like other direct contact predatory crimes, poaching occurs when a motivated offender encounters a suitable target in the absence of a capable guardian who might otherwise restrain or deter the offender (Eck, 1994; Felson &

Cohen, 1980). Those familiar with the environmental criminology literature will recognize these ideas as being at the core of routine activity (Cohen & Felson, 1979) and crime pattern theory (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993) and will not be surprised to learn that just like urban crimes, spatial patterns of poaching are non-random. Instead, incidents tend to form geographic clusters, with the risk of poaching varying across the landscapes animals inhabit (e.g. Wato et al., 2006).