Animal poaching is when an animal is killed illegally. This usually occurs when an animal possesses something that can be considered valuable such as its fur, ivory, or bones. Animal poaching has increased so much that at the beginning of the 20th century there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. However, there are now about about 450,000-700,000 African elephants and around 35,000-40,000 Asian elephants (“11 Facts About Poaching Animals,” n.d.). Upwards up 35,000 African elephants are poached each year for their prized tusks. Elephant tusks are composed of ivory that is sold on the black market for an immense amount of wealth. A highly respected and well established magazine called The Week stated,
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Animal poaching mostly takes place in poor areas where there isn’t much money for an individual to earn. These poachers could potentially have families that they are trying to feed, so they resort to animal poaching to make a quick buck. Kara Segedin, a journalist for BBC Earth, once interviewed Philmon Mathe, a former animal poacher in South African. Mathe claimed that the reason he didn’t poach animals for the massive payout, but instead his community poached for food. He even stated, “‘Ever since I was a child, hunting is all I've known,’ Philmon says. ‘Unemployment drove me to this.’” These men didn’t want to go out and start hunting these animals for fun, they did it in order to survive (Segedin, 2016). This doesn’t mean that these men didn’t do anything wrong though. These men still illegally poached endangered animals when they could’ve done something else to earn money or food. In fact, they could have hunted legal game instead of killing endangered animals. If food was that big of a struggle then why didn’t they just hunt other game? As previously stated, illegal wildlife trade was a $19 billion industry (McGrath, 2012). When growing up in a poor village, this amount of money is unheard of. It seems like it would be easy to go out and kill game for big money. The amount of money an individual could earn off of one animal could be life changing for them. What they don’t realize is that they won’t make the big money, instead they’ll only receive a small amount of it. It is estimated that most poachers only obtain 5% of the retail value of the animal that they killed (“Wildlife Trafficking & Criminal Profits,” n.d.). Why would these men still poach endangered animals and eventually destroy an entire ecosystem just to receive a
Animal poaching mostly takes place in poor areas where there isn’t much money for an individual to earn. These poachers could potentially have families that they are trying to feed, so they resort to animal poaching to make a quick buck. Kara Segedin, a journalist for BBC Earth, once interviewed Philmon Mathe, a former animal poacher in South African. Mathe claimed that the reason he didn’t poach animals for the massive payout, but instead his community poached for food. He even stated, “‘Ever since I was a child, hunting is all I've known,’ Philmon says. ‘Unemployment drove me to this.’” These men didn’t want to go out and start hunting these animals for fun, they did it in order to survive (Segedin, 2016). This doesn’t mean that these men didn’t do anything wrong though. These men still illegally poached endangered animals when they could’ve done something else to earn money or food. In fact, they could have hunted legal game instead of killing endangered animals. If food was that big of a struggle then why didn’t they just hunt other game? As previously stated, illegal wildlife trade was a $19 billion industry (McGrath, 2012). When growing up in a poor village, this amount of money is unheard of. It seems like it would be easy to go out and kill game for big money. The amount of money an individual could earn off of one animal could be life changing for them. What they don’t realize is that they won’t make the big money, instead they’ll only receive a small amount of it. It is estimated that most poachers only obtain 5% of the retail value of the animal that they killed (“Wildlife Trafficking & Criminal Profits,” n.d.). Why would these men still poach endangered animals and eventually destroy an entire ecosystem just to receive a