For centuries criminologists have looked for scientific ways to study understand and ultimately prevent crime. In this volume a unique offense poaching is explored in various contexts to determine what opportunity structures favor this crime and how situational crime prevention may reduce its prevalence. The data sources used range from publically available secondary data about animal populations to interviews with hunters to actual law enforcement data collected inside protected areas. Various methods are utilized to look for patterns in poaching behaviour regarding where poachers strike which species they target and their modus operandi. Collectively the volume shows that principles of criminal opportunity theory and situational crime prevention are useful for studying and preventing poaching in a variety of contexts. The methods employed by each chapter are easily replicated and meant to stimulate empirical poaching research where data is available. While the theoretical grounding of this volume is drawn from criminology it is written for a broad audience of academics practitioners and those interested in wildlife conservation. . Language: English