218 A Nurse considerable attention has been paid to the topics of animal abuse and cruelty and the study of animal abusers (Beirne 2007; Nurse 2013a; Sollund 2012) Green criminology also provides a mechanism for rethinking the study of criminal laws, ethics, crime and criminal behaviour (Lynch and Stretesky 2003; Situ and Emmons 2000) Much animal abuse discourse is concerned with direct abuse in the form of physical cruelty caused to animals and the links between domestic animal abuse, domestic violence and more ‘serious’ forms of offending such as serial killing (Linzey 2009) Collecting, however, must be seen in the context of its harm or impact on animal populations and species survival but also in respect of its links to anthropocentric notions of nonhuman animals as property to be disposed of as humans see fit and whose lives are inherently worth less than human lives Animals generally not have legal personhood that would confer victim status (Kean 1998; Regan 2004; Wise 2000) Sollund (2008) identifies such discrepancy as speciesism, reflecting the construction of animals as ‘others’ and which emphasises the difference between humans and animals This chapter argues that various forms of collecting constitute animal abuse; reflecting both anthropocentric notions of what constitutes crime, and ideological perceptions about the value of nonhuman animal life One important rationalisation provided by the Hobby Criminal (Nurse 2013a, 2011) is that of their offences being ‘victimless’ crimes and thus, their activities should not be the target of law enforcement activity An example can be found in the case of egg collector Richard Pearson, jailed in 2008 for possessing more than 7,000 eggs (Wood 2008) whose defence solicitor argued at court that: It is of some significance that this defendant is not a dangerous man to the public He is simply a working man who had an overwhelming fascination for eggs In reality what he has been experiencing over the last months and years is an unlawful habit (Wood 2008) Such denial of criminality; avoidance of responsibility and attempt to minimise the severity of collecting offences as a ‘habit’ or ‘hobby’ is integral to an offender’s rationalisation While egg collecting and large-scale taxidermy possession cases are routinely prosecuted, in the UK at least, these activities have limited negative impact on species’ populations Yet in the case of rarer species such as big game, illegal trophy hunting risks impacting negatively on carefully constructed conservation plans and can risk species survival Hobby criminals, particularly collectors, not readily accept that their activities amount to criminal behaviour and use techniques of avoidance, denial, displacement of blame and challenges to the legitimacy of