Detecting deterrence from patrol data

The threat posed to protected areas (PAs) by the illegal killing of wildlife is countered principally by ranger patrols that aim to detect and deter potential offenders. Deterring poaching is a fundamental conservation objective [1]. However, deterrence is difficult to identify, especially when the prime source of information comes in the form of the patrols’ own records, which inevitably contain biases [2]. Sophisticated statistical techniques for the analysis of patrol data have been developed which considerable promise [3], but there is also a need for simple, widely-applicable metrics which can reliably detect deterrence. Here, we present a mechanistic model of law-breaking and law enfo…