Editing Poaching (section)

=== United Kingdom ===
[[File:Tremedda Warning.jpg|thumb|Brass plaque on door at [[Tremedda]] farm dating to 1868, warning that poachers shall be shot on first sight]]
Poaching, like [[wildlife trade#Illegal wildlife trade|smuggling]], has a long history in the United Kingdom. The [[verb]] ''poach'' is [[etymology|derived]] from the [[Middle English]] word ''pocchen'' literally meaning ''[[bag]]ged'', ''enclosed in a bag'', which is [[cognate]] with "pouch".<ref name="Oxford05">{{cite book |chapter-url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/poach--2 |title=The new Oxford American dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |location=New York |chapter=Poaching |author=McKean, E. (ed.) |access-date=18 August 2013 |archive-date=28 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928003722/http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/poach--2 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Merriam2003">{{cite book |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poaching?show=0&t=1376128897 |title=The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-Webster, Inc. |year=2003 |location=Springfield |author=Merriam-Webster, Inc. |contribution=Poaching |access-date=18 August 2013}}</ref>
Poaching was dispassionately reported for England in "Pleas of the Forest", transgressions of the rigid Anglo-Norman [[royal forest#Forest law|forest law]].<ref>{{cite journal |year=1884 |title=Staffordshire Forest Pleas: Introduction |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=52372 |journal=Staffordshire Historical Collections |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=123–135 |last1=Wrottesley |first1=G. |author-link=George Wrottesley}}</ref> [[William the Conqueror]], who was a great lover of hunting, established and enforced a system of forest law. This system operated outside the [[common law]] and served to protect game animals and their forest habitat from hunting by the common people of England, while reserving hunting rights for the new French-speaking Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Henceforth, hunting of game in royal forests by commoners was punishable by hanging. In 1087, the poem "[[The Rime of King William]]", contained in the [[Peterborough Chronicle]], expressed English indignation at the severe new laws. Poaching was romanticised in literature from the time of the [[ballad]]s of [[Robin Hood]], as an aspect of the "greenwood" of [[Merry England]]. In one tale, Robin Hood is depicted as offering King [[Richard the Lion Heart]] venison from deer that was illegally hunted in the Sherwood Forest, the King overlooking the fact that this hunting was a capital offence. The widespread acceptance of the common criminal activity is encapsulated in the observation ''Non est inquirendum, unde venit venison'' ("It is not to be inquired, whence comes the venison") that was made by [[Guillaume Budé]] in his ''Traitte de la vénerie''.<ref>Budé, G. (1861). [https://archive.org/stream/traittedelavner00chevgoog#page/n10/mode/2up ''Traitte de la vénerie'']. Auguste Aubry, Paris. Reported by Sir Walter Scott, ''[[The Fortunes of Nigel]]'', Ch. 31: "The knave deer-stealers have an apt phrase, Non est inquirendum unde venit venison"; [[Henry Thoreau]], and [[Simon Schama]], ''Landscape and Memory'', 1995:137, reporting [[William Gilpin (priest)|William Gilpin]], ''Remarks on Forest Scenery''.</ref> However, the English nobility and land owners were in the long term extremely successful in enforcing the modern concept of property, such as expressed in the [[enclosures]] of common land and later in the [[Highland Clearances]], both of which were [[forced displacement]] of people from traditional land tenancies and erstwhile-common land. The 19th century saw the rise of acts of legislation, such as the [[Night Poaching Act 1828]] and the [[Game Act 1831]] ([[1 & 2 Will. 4]]. c. 32) in the United Kingdom, and various laws elsewhere.