Poachers: The Threat They Pose

Poachers: The Threat They Pose Every animal no matter the species have a vital role to play within its local ecosystem and food chain and then a part within the worlds much larger ecosystem. When a species of animals goes extinct whether it is from being overhunted or from a species wide illness, it has a rippling effect on the local ecosystem. Much like the United States government an ecosystem is a checks and balance system so it can be pure chaos for the species that remain. If it was a predator species that went extinct it is plausible that without that predator to control the prey species below them by hunting, they will overpopulate and cause more damage by overhunting the species below them. If it was a prey species that went extinct the predator species above them could be damaged in multiple ways. One way is that the predators’ numbers could start to dwindle as they start to starve or kill each other because of the lack of food. Another way is that …show more content…
But poachers had other ideas about what to do with the knowledge of the location of the newly discovered species. They began gathering the species in this case new species of geckos (Goniurosaurus yingdeensis and Goniurosaurus liboensis) to sell as they please either in the pet trade or simply on the black market. Sadly, these species are not the first nor the last to be sold as pets “since being scientifically described in the 1990s, the Indonesian turtle Cheloclina mccordi and another type of cave gecko Goniurosaurus luii fetch pet trade prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,000 apiece” (Geggal par. 9) it is because of this black market pet trading “that C. mccordi is almost extinct in the wild, and G. luii has gone locally extinct” (Geggal par.