The Poaching Crises Thousands of people are willing to risk their lives to kill an elephant or a rhinoceros each year. To many people, this sounds morally wrong, but to wildlife conservationists this sounds like an atrocity against nature and a crime that people should be convicted for, but hardly ever are. This injustice plagues South Africa and Kenya along with many National Parks and animal refuges in Africa. The rangers in these area are at a constant battle with warlords and gang members and are simply trying to save both their skin and the animal’s tusks. The poaching of listed and endangered animals along with maintaining the current rate of trafficking of animal products is causing drastic environmental effects, as well as, the extinction of many animals, and the problem is only said to increase within the coming decades. Poaching, the illegal practice of trespassing to hunt or steal game, has become a worldwide trend in which criminal syndicates have taken part in. Countries that have a high poaching rate include the United States and Africa, but the animal parts taken from these countries are traded all over the world. There are many reasons why poaching has been proven unnecessary over the years, yet the killing of rhinos and elephants for their horns and ivory has increased by over 300 percent since 1989. (Odula 2) Many people who are not as obviously impacted by these changes question as to why this is relevant and how it pertains to their wellbeing. If the killing and trafficking of animals is not Fleenor 4 enough of a reason to be concerned, terrorist groups in Africa, such as Somalia’s al-Shabab, the Lords Resistance Army, and Darfur’s Janjaweed are using the profits for selling these items to arm themselves wi... ... middle of paper ... ...l as influential, political leaders and dedicated rangers are faced with is to stop the extinction of as many animals as they can so that the next generation can enjoy their beauty and charm as much as the generations before them. Works Cited Ellis, Richard. Tiger Bone And Rhino Horn: The Destruction of Wildlife for Traditional Chinese Medicine. Washington: Island Press, 2005. Print. Duffy, Rosaleen. Nature Crime: How We’re Getting Conservation Wrong. United States: Yale University Press, 2010. Print. Odula, Tom. US News. Associated Press. March 25, 2014. Web. 10 April 2014. Meryl Burgees. University Stellenbosch Center for Chinese Studies. University Stellenbosch. December 2012. Web. 14 April 2014. Harvey, Martin. “Stopping Poaching.” October, 2013. Web. 12 April 2014: 2. Web. Kahumba, Paula and Ingber, Lisa. “Africa Wild.” The Guardian 16 March 2014: 3. Web.
It is a common notion that hunting isn’t fair to animals, that they have right to be free from human intervention. However, hunters lead conservation efforts in the United States. They do more to help preserve wildlife habitats, which is essential to wildlife welfare, than any other group. Indeed, habitat destruction poses a greater risk to wildlife today than hunting and conservation helps promote animal welfare. On the surface, these claims may seem counterintuitive. Hunters in the United States, however, fund wildlife conservation more than any other sources combined. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, “Hunters contribute over $1.6 billion annually to conservation. Hunters are without peer when it comes to funding the perpetuation and conservation of wildlife natural habitats” (“Hunting” 6). Without these f...
Killing animals to collect their horns, tusks and teeth is a common activity. Hunters firstly kill the animals with shotguns or snipers, and then they cut the animals into pieces to take the parts that they want to keep as souvenirs. Africa is usually the chosen “playground” because it has a wide range of animal species and lots of endemic animals. For some people, trophy hunting is a sport, and for others, it’s a job to make a living. However, trophy hunting jeopardizes animals and puts the endangered animals in a risk of extinction, and therefore it shouldn’t be allowed.
Since the European colonization of eastern Africa, big game hunting, also know as "trophy hunting", has been a very controversial topic. During the early days of trophy hunting, dwindling numbers of some of the world’s most unique and prized wildlife was not a problem like it is today. When a trophy hunting dentist from Minnesota paid $55,000 to kill a prized African lion, he unintentionally reignited the heated debate concerning big game hunting. Wildlife conservationists and hunters debate the impact of hunting on the economy and the environment. Legal hunting can be controlled without government intervention, and the expensive sport of trophy hunting could generate a large sum of money to support conservation efforts.
“Many airlines now ban shipments of African “Big Five wildlife trophies. Celebrities around the world, as well as the media, are condemning the illegal killing of animals for sport. The United Nations has also spoken out in a historic resolution on wildlife trafficking by the U.N. General Assembly that “strongly encouraged governments to commit to targeted actions to eradicate supply, transit and demand for illegal wildlife products” (Source 4). Countries, media, and celebrities are now discouraging the illegal killing of large game and urges the governments of many countries to enact laws to stop the black market distribution of these predators. It is important to prohibit illegal trophies and to enforce these laws with punishments and fines to remove species from the endangered species list and stop extinctions. Stricter laws and regulations can protect and save entire species from ceasing to exist. “Just months after the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History accepted a $20 million donation from big-game hunter Kenneth Behring, the Institution sought a FWS permit to import the trophy remains of two endangered wild sheep that Behring shot in Central Asia…After a storm of ugly publicity, the Smithsonian abandoned the permit application” (Source 1). The case of the Smithsonian Museum attempting to import two endangered sheep is just one
First, poaching is a huge game being played. It hurts the animals or species that are being targeted, which causes them to increase their chances of extinction. Orietta C. Estrada, an animal and environmental writer, explains that poaching "is a crime fueled by a lucrative black market trade of animal parts"(onegreenplanet). To these people, it is all about the money. They do not bother to think about how much pain this creature may feel. The only thing they desire to obtain is the big dollars. The animals that are affected by this monstrous act are elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, Tibetan antelopes, gorillas, and great apes(animalpoachers.weebly). The most they have done with dealing with the poachers is give them a cruel punishment for being caught. It does not work because it still happens today and the animals are still dying and becoming
There’s another catch to trophy hunting: it is extremely expensive. Permits for trophy hunting usually cost thousands of dollars, which leads to the idea that killing animals can actually help conservation. This concept might seem ridiculous at first, but trophy-hunting permits bring in a plethora of money. For instance, the so-called “ten-day ‘elephant package’ could cost… 36,000 [dollars]” (learnenglish). Even if you merely wish to watch the hunt, you are obliged to pay 3,800 dollars (abcnews). The prices are strikingly high, meaning that so is the revenue. South Africa alone brings in more than 744 million dollars every single year, making it its “most profitable form of commercial land use” (learnenglish). This enormous amount of money can not only be used to aid the many third world countries in Africa, but also with conservation. Many argue that by killing wild game during hunting, it causes some species to go extinct. However, strong economic incentive has motivated landowners to expand their territories, reintroduce species, and take care of the animals in general, which would indicate the opposite: more animals are safe. One might even conclude that the world is saving animals, by killing
A social outrage has broken recently amid the scandal surrounding Cecil the Lion’s death. Cecil was illegally hunted and killed by the American dentist Walter Palmer. Since then, it has caused the world to change their minds on the effects of trophy hunting. Succeeding the death of the renowned lion, a recent poll in America displays that, on a three to one margin, the respondents said they would rather be tourists in a country that prohibits trophy hunting, instead of one that does not. The debate is rising as more hunters proudly present their ‘trophy’ on social media.
Extinction is no longer just a natural process. It is an enemy, slowly changing our world into a barren wasteland where life is as rare as a flower in the Arctic Circle's winter. The wolf, the tiger, the caribou, the elephant, the bison, the cheetah, the sequoia cactus, the redwood tree – all of these and so many more things are on the verge of disappearing from our planet forever. Extinction is the most pressing environmental issue of our time, because if it continues the way it is going without anything being done to counteract its causes and consequences, there will soon be no environment left for there to be debates about.
The National Wildlife Federation lists an endangered animals as a genus that may be eradicated by leaving an insufficient quantity to reproduce or obliterating the species in it entirety ("Endangered animals act," para 1). In the United States alone there are 70 mammals that are recorded as endangered; however the foreign number exceeds 250 (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2014). The extinction process could be correlated to a natural route; however extinction may also transpire due to environmental differences. Climate variations producing even slight changes in characteristics may have an extreme consequence on an endangered species. Loss of habitation also impacts species causing them to becoming imperiled. On occasion ailments are distributed from domestic animal; due to the loss of habitation wild animals to come in contact with infected animals. For example Siberian tigers have development distemper from domestic dogs; and this has triggered the tigers to lose their fear of humans. This proves to be hazardous when the tigers approach villages and roads and are killed; furthermore the disease may cost the tigers their lives. (Dell’Amore, 2013). Many of the vanishing animals are poached for varies elements that may be utilized in traditional treatment. The African rhino is on species that is being significantly exploited for their horns; in Vietnam and China the horn is thought to treat everything from hangovers to cancer (O’Neill, 2013). In addition, the introduction of an exotic species afflicts endangered animals, and the overexploitation of animals initiates noteworthy reductions in populations. If an animal is not able to adapt to changing variations it could be disastrous to a species.
Yang, Gene Luen, and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006. Print.
.... Some animals face endangerment because of human’s hunting activities and because of the climate changes. Due to the endangered rare species, people solve this problem by bringing these animals back to their natural habitat.
Elephants are an endangered species and they should not be killed for their ivory or they will become extinct. In the article The Poaching Problem the author writes” elephant populations have declined to dangerously low levels.” At the rate that poachers are killing these innocent animal the entire species of elephants will be extinct in the year 2030! That is only twenty five years, I know that does not seem like a long time but it is going to go by fast and every one will regret killing all those poor innocent gentle creatures. In case study 483 they author writes “ During the 1970s and 1980s elephant poaching had included about 1.3 million elephants killed for their tusks.” It is hard to distinguish between legal and illegal ivory so it is sold easily.
In the world where people live in is an enormous responsibility but also the greatest gift that people need to cherish and protect. The human race needs to step up and voice not only their concerns, but the concerns of all the animals endangered or not. Any species which fall into the categories vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered are considered to be at risk of extinction. {Robert Redford} said “I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security defense of our resource’s because it’s just as important as defense abroad otherwise what is there to defend?”
Although it may not seem saving or protecting endangered animals is important, it actually and truly is important because animals around the world are being killed for wildlife market goods which is illegal and destroys the species population in that environment. Citizens should take more concern with taking care of these endangered animals before they become totally extinct and will no longer be seen on the face of the earth. Recently researchers have found that poachers (hunters who hunt animals for their value with trading illegal merchandise) are killing thousands of animals a day, and they are doing so even to this day. These species should be treated with more responsibility and care. They are even being killed by human interactions
Recently over the years elephant populations have drastically declined. This is due to human encroachment on their habit and poaching. Demand for ivory has increased the number of poaching kills in Africa. In 1988 congress passed the elephant African Elephant Conservation Act which placed a ban against illegal ivory imports and authorizes government funding for elephant field conservation projects. Although some African countries have initiated African elephant conservation programs, many do not have the sufficient resources to properly manage, conserve and protect their elephant’s populations. Unfortunately, we are possibly undergoing “the greatest percentage loss of elephants in history” (Ruggiero). Without the proper conservation of elephant survival we will see a drastic shift in the environment.