ABSTRACT
Scholarship in conservation biology has identified several human-caused drivers of global declines in plant and animal species. Among these threats include crimes committed against legally protected wild living things. Conservation-focused criminological research can help us understand these problems and may offer potential solutions but should be guided by empirical evaluations of threats and their impacts. This chapter undertakes an analysis of this kind for one group of species – non-human primates. Threats identified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature were evaluated for their effect on primate extinction risk using ordered logistic regression. Of eight threats considered, four explain greater extinction risk: habitat loss and fragmentation, and hunting for the meat and pet trades. Results suggest that conservation criminologists would best serve primates by focusing efforts on the illegal trades in meat and pets and illegal deforestation in primate habitats. Discussion of the ramifications of these findings and their implications for future criminological research close the chapter.
