Animals Poaching
I know this article is a little different from my other articles, but honestly, I am just trying it out. Hope you like it. Probably you won´t like this article though, since it is somewhat depressing. This topic breaks my heart every time I hear about it. The animal kingdom is so big and fascinating. Even designers, scientist and engineers are learning from the animal kingdoms all the time. But there are still people out there who are willing to kill that for money. How can humans ever make the world a better place if they are constantly killing for wealth?
There are thousands of animal species out there, but a lot of them are on the brink of extinction, because of us humans. You may ask why. Just look around what do you see. Since you are reading this article online, you have to be somewhere with an internet connection. You are probably at home or the local library. What do you see when you look around? Buildings? Roads? A man-made park? Believe it or not where the city now is used to be a forest or grassland. It used to be the homes of some animals. We have destroyed that. The animals had to move into a smaller habitat where they have to compete with other animals to stay alive. It is called survival of the fittest for a reason, but is it really necessary for the animals to suffer?
Animals are well adapted to their environment, but once their environment change due to, for example, climate change, they have to either adapt or die. A lot of people don´t believe that climate change is a thing, but we have to face the facts. It is and we can´t just close our eyes and hope it would disappear one day. Humans cause a lot of the climate change that forces animals to adapt to a new environment. We are also taking away their home for our infrastructure and necessities. All humans feel bad when they see the picture of a baby polar bear on the ice, but does anyone do anything about it? It is great if you are, I applaud you for that, but most people are not. What makes it even worse is that we cry about the extinction of animals, but do we do anything to prevent it?
That is not even the worst of it. Animals are already dying because of us since we need space for our growing population. They are also dying due to our bad reaction time. A lot more however are dying for a completely selfish reason. Some people want an exotic pet, a new fur carpet, ivory statue, etc… We are already kicking the animals out of their habitat. Is it really necessary that we kill them for our pleasure as well? The ivory statues and fur carpets are not even a necessity. It is a bragging right and honestly, it is disgusting. It destroys the ecosystem for the future generation, but they only care about the here and now. I know it is important to live in the present, but one also has to think ahead of time.
Some animals are already adapting themselves to be better suited in an environment with poachers. Did you some elephants in Africa are evolving to lose their tusk. Can you imagine an elephant without a tusk? They have a better chance of survival in comparison to their tusked peers, but do they look as good? I am not trying to body-shame the tusk-less elephants, but I can´t imagine a tusk-less elephant. Out of sixteen representative elephant species, only one is tusk-less. The Borneo Elephant to be exact. The images of the other fifteen species all have tusks. The ivory tusk is what makes an elephant iconic. I can´t believe that future generations will draw elephants without tusks in kindergarten. You can say: “Sure, the elephants are tusk-less, but at least they are alive. “ It is great that the elephants have adapted so they can survive, but don´t you dare change the subject. They changed so that they can survive, but why did they need to survive in the first place?
Every year, millions of animals are captured and sold - alive or dead! The animals are sold as medicine, food, pets, souvenirs and clothing. Wildlife trafficking is legal in many cases, but many cases are carried out illegally. As a result, many species are endangered and may even become extinct. The illegal wildlife trade can also have a negative impact on people. If you think about the animals that live in the oceans, overfishing can have catastrophic consequences for the ecosystem. Besides, climate change is already threatening many species with extinction. I do not want the wildlife trade to be a reason for the extinction of many wild animals and neither should you want that.
The illegal wildlife trade of e.g. ivory, animal fur, etc.... is worth an estimated amount of roughly 11.9 billion Euros. The wildlife traders earn a lot, but is it worth it at all? Illegal wildlife trade or animal killing/torture/abuse is punishable by law. You can be fined up to 25,000 euros. Per kilo, you get about 641.62 euros in China. With that money, you can only pay for your flight. One can earn about 3900 euros per elephant killed. As you can see, it's not worth it. You have to kill about 7 elephants for it to make sense to do wildlife trade. You earn much more if you sell wild cats, but you have to find one first.
From a financial standpoint, the illegal wildlife trade is risky. From an ecological standpoint, animal poaching is terrible, to say the least. This begs the question, why do we still have that. The answer is complex, but the easy version is that we either don´t know or don´t care. Just like climate change, we don´t know the impact, since it is so distant. The consequences of climate change will become more obvious in the future and so are the consequences of animal poaching. We may not know the full extent of the consequences of our actions now, but when we do eventually find out, it is too late and we can´t do anything to reverse it. Now you hopefully think, “I have to do something to save the animals, but what can I do?” It is a step in the right direction that you want to help. You don´t have to do a lot and you don´t have to learn a lot.
You can help the animals by...
Helping injured wild animals (please ask a professional to do it)
Becoming an animal sponsor and raise awareness (the more people know the more people will care)
Organising charity events (it is a great way to raise money and awareness and to meet people with a similar mindset)
Donating (money, food, things, etc...) There are a lot of great charities and organisations out there helping the endangered animals who are not only threatened by poachers, but also by environmental factors.
Protesting against wildlife trafficking