Are there only crimes against humanity (Derrida, 2002)? Certainly not. And wildlife criminology aims to expose the range of crimes against non-humans who are overlooked, ignored and hidden, and argues for an expansion of the criminological gaze to include harms against wildlife. This chapter examines the future of wildlife criminology in relation to each of the chapter topics to demonstrate the wealth of research that is possible, which can challenge the exploitation and suffering that is a fundamental feature of many aspects of our societies. We revisit wildlife as property, food (and other ‘products’), sport, reflectors of violence and victims of human violence as well as their plight to achieve rights and justice. To start though, we return to a short discussion of language.

Improving our vocabulary

In relation to the themes of this book – commodification and exploitation, violence, rights, and speciesism and othering – the words and phrases used to detail each of these aspects, when talking or writing about non-human animals still, as we mentioned in Chapter 1, leave much to be desired. As a complementary project to the established critical and green fields of criminology, wildlife criminology can contribute to the debates as to what language we should be using as well as offer new terms that depart from the anthropocentric baggage of existing terms. What label can be proposed instead of ‘non-human animal’? Can wildlife criminology help engrain the shift from using instrumental language when discussing wildlife, to language that reflects their victimhood – murder, theriocide, kidnap, enslave, rather than harvest, cull, capture, house. We hope that those who join the wildlife criminology project will employ sensitive language, whereby non-human animals are not ‘it’, ‘something’, ‘pests’, ‘products’ or ‘commodities’. We should aid in making wildlife visible in any way we can and how we speak about them is one way in which we can give voice to their individuality and suffering.

Wildlife as property

Commodification and exploitation of wildlife, and violence towards them, are possible because of their status as property.