Dehorning rhinos proactively removed the incentive for poachers and reduced poaching activity by 78% across 11 Greater Kruger African reserves from 2017 to 2023, a new study has found. Conversely, law enforcement interventions designed to punish poachers retroactively had no statistical effect on poaching. “Our results present a challenge to governments, funders, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations to reassess their strategic approaches to wildlife crime in general,” Timothy Kuiper and colleagues write. “Although detecting and arresting poachers is essential, strategies that focus on reducing opportunities for and rewards from poaching may be more effective.” Born of international demand for horns, poaching not only harms rhinos – it also affects countries’ tourism revenue, hurts ecosystems, funds criminal syndicates, and spurs violence. One popular conservation strategy, based on the tenets of behavioral economics, suggests that increasing the probability of being caught and/or the severity of punishment once caught can deter poachers. Yet, these law enforcement measures are largely reactive and take place after poaching has already occurred. Now, Kuiper et al. have compared law enforcement (tracking dogs, camera surveillance, and rangers for judicial punishment) to dehorning. The latter proactively removes incentive, instead of reactively applying a disincentive. From 2017 to 2023, the team recorded poaching of 1,985 rhinos across 11 southern Greater Kruger African reserves. This activity took place even with the equivalent of 74 million US dollars spent on antipoaching law enforcement and despite more than 700 poacher arrests. Kuiper et al. used Bayesian regression models to establish causal pathways between reactive and proactive interventions and their outcomes. Reactive interventions had no statistically significant effect on poaching. However, dehorning – which happened to 2,284 rhinos in 8 of the reserves – yielded a 78% reduction in poaching. Notably, dehorning only cost 1.2% of the entire budget spent within the time period. The authors offer several reasons for why reactive antipoaching interventions were less useful. “Ongoing socioeconomic inequality incentivizes a large pool of vulnerable and motivated people to join, or poach for, criminal syndicates even when the risks are high,” they write, adding that corruption and ineffective justice systems can further thwart reactive approaches. They also warn that poachers will still sometimes target dehorned rhino stumps or regrown horns out of necessity, and caution that dehorning’s long-term impact on rhino biology remains poorly understood.
