Relational structure of illegal wildlife hunting in China: A nationwide hunter–prey network analysis

Illegal wildlife hunting continues to pose a major biodiversity threat in China, yet there remains no systemic relational understanding of the way in which perpetrators are linked to key taxa. To address this, here we provide a novel framework for understanding and addressing the systemic roots of wildlife crime.

To characterise the structure of hunter–prey interactions in China, we applied bipartite network analysis, a relational framework not previously applied to nationwide wildlife crime prosecution data, to 6379 poaching case prosecution records (2014–2020).

Results revealed that illegal hunting forms significantly nested, non‐random networks at national and provincial scales, producing a structured socio‐ecological system. Offenders were overwhelmingly males, with those aged 31–50 with primary to junior middle school education predominating and hunting the broadest prey spectrum. Provincial socio‐economic context, particularly regional wealth, shaped these hunter‐prey networks, increasing nestedness in mammal poaching. Key prey families (e.g. Phasianidae) were associated with a broad range of hunter groups (defined by age and educational attainment) within the network.

Our findings show that poaching forms a structured, non‐random network, suggesting limitations to uniform enforcement approaches in China. This nested structure is consistent with a clear core–periphery configuration, in which a small number of prey families are targeted by many hunter groups, while other prey families are embedded within narrower, more specialised hunting relations. More broadly, effective conservation must integrate demographically targeted interventions, network‐informed protection of core prey and regionally tailored policies to disrupt the structure of hunter‐prey networks.