Poaching was not always considered a thing in the world. We hunted and gathered to survive and feed our family and community. There were no regulations on what people could hunt whether it was for food or for sport. It was not until around the middle ages until poaching was an actual punishable action. This is due to the fact that hunting was reserved for certain levels of the feudal system. To learn more about this basic outline click here.
Timeline of Poaching
- 1700s—Poaching starts in Europe as poorer people cannot find another way to get food to survive.[1]
- 1880s—Peasants are allowed to hunt small game that is on their farms as a means of survival in Europe.[2]
- 1900—The United States passes the Lacey Act making it illegal to sell a poached animal in one state to someone in another state for a profit.[3]
- 1918—The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is implemented between the United States, Great Britain, Mexico, Japan, and Russia, protecting migrating birds from being killed, hunted, exported, or sold for profit.[4]
- 1940s—Hunting and deforestation in Russia leads to a 40% decline in the Siberian tiger population[5]
- 1960s—CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is formed as an international agreement to protect animals in trade so that their survival is not threatened[6]
- 1973—The Endangered Species Act provides conservation for threatened and endangered plants and animals in their respective habitats in an effort to keep populations stable and protected[7]
- 1989—A global ivory ban is created by CITES in an effort to reduce poaching and stop the decreasing number of elephant populations[8]
- 2006—Elephant poaching spikes and 120 carcasses are found in a national park in Africa[9]
- 2013—Around 2000 dead pangolins, a very rare mammal, are seized from a fishing vessel headed towards China[10]
- This information was taken from another source to learn more click here.