Estimating hunting in Cambodia 885 Perceptions of patrols


Sixty-two per cent of respondents reported they were not worried about encountering patrols in the forest. Themajor- ity said that as they did not hunt or partake in any illegal activities they had nothing to fear, although a small number of respondents expressed concern that patrols might pre- vent or punish the legal collection of NTFPs, such as rattan. Others reported adapting their behaviour to avoid patrols, for example by waiting until patrols had passed. Some said friends and family would call to warn them if patrols passed through the village towards the forest. One respondent said when hunting in a group, each would travel individually to reduce the chance of being spotted by a patrol, and meat would be shared in the forest before leaving, to reduce pun- ishment if caught. In total, 37%of respondents expressed con- cern about meeting patrols, of which 21% said that this was because a member of their household was engaged in illegal logging. A further 25%of respondents said they were worried that rangers would punish themif their dogs caught wildlife. Several respondents believed that camera traps set by the Wildlife Conservation Society to monitor wildlife popula- tions were actually set to photograph people hunting.


Corruption


We frequently found that respondents associated patrols with corruption. One individual stated ‘patrols only come to catch the money, not to stop people’, and another stated ‘patrols only use laws for villagers, they have different rules for outsiders or people with power’. One respondent, who was a commercial hunter, reported they avoided punish- ment because they were on friendly terms with rangers, and other respondents reported that if hunters were caught, rangers would ask for or accept a bribe. Others believed that when rangers confiscated meat, they ate it themselves in- stead of destroying it. After one interview a respondent reported they had found a muntjac fawn in the forest, but when urged to take it to the nearest patrol station, they refused, as they believed that the rangers may eat it. No- body explicitly reported having paid a bribe when caught hunting, but two respondents said they had paid bribes to patrols when transporting wood, and others reported they had heard that other villagers paid bribes to release confis- cated motorbikes. One respondent said that bribery occurs because the low-paid rangers have to pay their superiors, to maintain their positions.


Discussion


Hunting is widely cited as a cause of the loss of biodiver- sity in Cambodia (Harrison et al., 2016; Gray et al., 2017). Our research confirms that local communities living in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary do hunt, although there is


uncertainty regarding prevalence. Direct questioning and ceiling counts from the unmatched count technique suggest a prevalence of 9%, but the estimate from the latter did not differ significantly from zero. This is probably the result of floor and ceiling effects, which reduce precision, as well as anonymity (Blair et al., 2016). Our findings also highlight ambiguity regarding the definition of hunting; one-fifth of respondents reported setting snares around farms, which was considered a legitimate crop protection activity, and when people were asked about how they accessed wild meat to eat, nearly a third said they caught their own wild meat, presumably from snares set around farms. Yet, few households stated they hunted. Our results suggest that questions about the intentional killing of wildlife in the for- est were probably subject to bias, and that responses about wildlife killed opportunistically (e.g. by dogs) or coinciden- tally (e.g. to protect crops) were less likely to be censored, a matter also documented elsewhere in Cambodia (Coad et al., 2019). Our findings reinforce the need to consider survey questions carefully, and to triangulate by asking several questions, in different ways, about the same topic, particularly if examining sensitive topics. During our research, some respondents were hushed by fellow family members when discussing hunting, and others failed to mention information they later provided after question- naires were completed (e.g. borrowing guns). Overall, it is likely our findings underestimate hunting prevalence. Although specialized methods such as the unmatched


count technique can be useful for reducing biases asso- ciated with sensitive topics, they require careful design, extensive piloting and are not suitable for all contexts (Hinsley et al., 2019). Greater understanding of the relia- bility of these methods for providing robust estimates of rule-breaking behaviour is needed. Typically, estimates derived from specialized questioning techniques are vali- dated by comparing them to those obtained from direct questioning; if prevalence estimates from the specialized method are higher, the method is perceived as more success- ful. In addition to undermining the anonymity of the meth- od (Ibbett & Brittain, 2019), this validation approach fails to inform researchers whether respondents understood the method and felt sufficiently protected to report their behav- iour accurately. Typically, conservation research focuses on obtaining data to answer urgent questions, rather than test- ing methods per se. Yet, experimental studies that explictly assess methods such as the unmatched count technique would enhance research practice and improve the reliability of data used to inform conservation interventions. Snaring has been identified as a specific threat to Cambodia’s wildlife (Harrison et al., 2016;O’Kelly et al., 2018) but, although snares were widely used to protect crops, few respondents reported setting snares to hunt wild- life in the forest. Snaring by ex-hunters, who theoretically have less incentive to misreport behaviour, was also low.


Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 878–888 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319001455


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