Government flip flopping on the legality of wolf hunting

The video discusses research regarding government flip flopping on the legality of wolf hunting in Wisconsin. During the time that it was legal to hunt the wolves to decrease the population, poaching actually increased, even though the opposite was expected to occur. According the the chart in the text, poaching potential begins with an attitude, social norm, or perceived behavioral control. In this case, the flip flopping of the government on the issue may have led to attitudes questioning the legitimacy of the decisions since they were unstable on the issue. Also, perceived importance of the wolf species may have decreased when the government decided to allow culling of the species. These attitudes would create reasons to poach, or undermine reasons not to poach. Next, the poachers need intention, which has to do with the opportunity that comes allow with poaching the animal. The theory of rational choice comes in here: if the benefit of poaching is larger than the fine or the risk associated with the crime, the rational choice of the poacher would be to kill the animal. According to the theory of rational choice, allowing a culling of wolves would increase potential for poaching, due to lack of perceived risk or importance of the species hunting created by the law allowing them to be culled ,

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