Collecting Wildlife Angus Nurse Introduction Animal abuse is often characterised as intentional cruelty and direct harm caused to live animals (Ascione 1993; Conboy-Hill 2000; Daugherty 2005; Schaffner 2011), particularly in respect of unnecessary suffering and the illegal exploitation of animals The ecological justice and species justice perspectives of green criminology (Beirne 2007; Benton 1998; White 2008) contend that justice systems need to more than just consider anthropocentric notions of detection, apprehension and punishment; they should also consider how effective justice systems can provide protection and redress for other species (Benton 1998; White 2008) Green criminological scholarship has, thus, already paid attention to theoretical questions of whether, how and to what extent justice systems deal with crimes against animals and has begun to conceptualise policy perspectives that can provide effective contemporary species justice alongside mainstream criminal justice This chapter considers these issues but is primarily concerned with explanations for crimes against animals In particular it examines collecting as animal abuse and activity encompassing both direct and indirect harm Animal abuse is significantly influenced by masculinities (Groombridge 1998), often involving the exercise of male power (frequently patriarchal) over A Nurse (*) Middlesex University School of Law, London, United Kingdom e-mail: a.nurse@mdx.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2017 J Maher et al (eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook of Animal Abuse Studies, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-43183-7_10 203