Argumentative Essay About Poaching

Is a rhinoceros really a rhinoceros without its horn? This has been the ongoing question since the 1950’s, with many strong arguments for both sides. Poaching is defined as illegal hunting, killing, and/or capturing of wild animals. Poaching began in the middle ages and was mainly done by peasants and poor people as a way to get food. Now days, poaching has become an estimated 10 billion dollar industry and no longer done by lower class people. The motives for poaching in recent years include commercial gain, home consumption, trophies, and the pleasure and thrill of illegal activity. There are many concerns involving the growing numbers of animals killed due to poaching each year, there is a noticeable amount of defaunation in many areas in Africa, where poaching rates are well above average, because of the decreasing numbers of certain animals that help forests repopulate. As well as the threat of possible extinction for animals that are highly endangered. From an economical perspective, the deterioration of exotic

The steps to dehorn a rhino starts out with darting the animal from a helicopter to put it to sleep. While under anesthesia a pen is used to mark the point of removal, about 7cm from the base of the front horn and 5 cm from the base of the back horn. The horn is then chopped off using a chainsaw or hand-saw. Finally, the stump is trimmed, smoothed, and covered with stockholm tar to prevent cracking or drying. There is a 5% chance that the rhino may die due to the sedate and the more often that they are put under the anaesthetic, the greater the risk of death. A regular rhino horn grows about 3-4 inches per year and considering that after being removed, the horn will grow back faster than one that was not removed, similar to hair growth, experts recommend that the horn be removed every 12-24 months. Each time, increasing the chance of death as well as the