Poaching

2 Pages 573 Words

“We are pushing a hundred species a day, four species an hour, into evolutionary oblivion,” says Richard Swift. In one month 3,000 species will be gone. These animals are butchered for their skin, feathers, tusks and internal organs, or taken as cage pets. These animals, once in abundance are killed in mass numbers and are becoming extinct or endangered at an alarming rate. This devastating loss to the eco-system could threaten the existence of human beings, and ironically we are the ones killing the animals. The people who are doing these vicious killing are known as poachers, or illegal hunters. Most poachers kill these animals for money, for in their country one pull of the trigger brings in a years wages. The poachers objective is to kill the animal for one thing, it might be its tusks, fur, or feathers, whatever it is the rest of the animals body is left for scavengers. Imagine a huge 9 ton elephant dead with just it’s tusks gone. If the animal knew it was going to be killed for its tusks I think he might have given them to the poacher. “The poaching problem has gotten so out of hand that the game wardens have been issued new vehicles and automatic weapons and have been given new orders to shoot poachers on sight,” says William F. Allman. It seems as if the protection of an animals life has become a war, humans have had to resort to killing other humans to protect species of animals that have been around alot longer than we have.

Some possible solutions to this growing problem is to stop the consumer market. If people stop buying the ivory, skins, and birds the poachers cannot make money. So infact the poachers may just be doing our dirty work, since we are the ones paying for the goods. Other solutions are the organizations like The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as CITES, which was set up by the United nations to control trade in wildlife and wildlife prod...