Legendary_Red
Banned
Shame on the poachers and shame on the people who demand ivory for their fucked up snake oil medicines.
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Poachers use cyanide to massacre over 300 elephants in Zimbabwe
- Thread starter ComputerMKII
- Start date
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It's kinda sad how even with all of this heartfelt support, elephants and rhinos and tigers are still teetering near extinction. Even in well-guarded parks, rhinos still die due to corrupt officials accepting money from poachers.
Meanwhile, thousands of insect and plant species are going extinct due to habitat destruction and nobody gives a shit. Good luck getting that to stop.
Meanwhile, thousands of insect and plant species are going extinct due to habitat destruction and nobody gives a shit. Good luck getting that to stop.
Allforce
Member
Not really on topic but sort of an interesting story. My neighbor is this super nice guy, a real mr fixit and always working on some bizarre project be it restoring motorcycles, designing custom golf carts, building something for somebody.
Anyways, last Friday he's out in the driveway smoothing down what looks like a giant curved PVC pipe. There's dust everywhere and he's using a belt sander and he's wearing a breather. I stop over and as I get closer, I see it's not pipe, he's got like a fucking 12 foot elephant tusk he's sanding down. I ask him what the hell is going on and he tells me some old lady a friend of a friend knows gave it to him, her husband was some big game hunter back in the day when I presume killing this stuff was a-ok before the world got hip to it. The husband is long since passed but there was a fire at their house and the tusk was totally charred, so this woman asked him to restore it for her.
I have no idea how illegal that is to own at this point or if there's a statute of limitations on game trophies but the sheer size of the tusk was incredible. Had a huge crack down the length of it from the fire and he was mounting it on a big circular metal pedestal so it would stand straight up with a natural curve. He was going to put a big leather cuff on the bottom of it.
Sort of sad knowing an elephant was killed but this thing was impressive and nice that the woman was having it restored in honor of her husband.
Anyways, last Friday he's out in the driveway smoothing down what looks like a giant curved PVC pipe. There's dust everywhere and he's using a belt sander and he's wearing a breather. I stop over and as I get closer, I see it's not pipe, he's got like a fucking 12 foot elephant tusk he's sanding down. I ask him what the hell is going on and he tells me some old lady a friend of a friend knows gave it to him, her husband was some big game hunter back in the day when I presume killing this stuff was a-ok before the world got hip to it. The husband is long since passed but there was a fire at their house and the tusk was totally charred, so this woman asked him to restore it for her.
I have no idea how illegal that is to own at this point or if there's a statute of limitations on game trophies but the sheer size of the tusk was incredible. Had a huge crack down the length of it from the fire and he was mounting it on a big circular metal pedestal so it would stand straight up with a natural curve. He was going to put a big leather cuff on the bottom of it.
Sort of sad knowing an elephant was killed but this thing was impressive and nice that the woman was having it restored in honor of her husband.
Ether_Snake
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Poachers need to be publicly executed.
You are thinking of Rhino's horn. They are not eating the ivory tusks.
Lamel
Banned
I doubt there are many elephants even left in that area to mourn anyone...
So wiping out scores of animals with chemical weapons, each of which could feed many people, so the ivory could be extracted to prevent poachers from starving is valid?
Hell no.
elephants don't breed like cows. it's difficult to have them give birth in captivity
The Tofunator
Member
Oh, they'll die of starvation eventually. Do you really think these people are going to allow for a sustainable population of elephants to exist?
Ether_Snake
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The UN is so useless, how difficult would it be to send blue helms to protect a natural reserve, set up a tribunal, arrest and prosecute the poachers? Easy as fucking pie as long as the host country allows it, and if it doesn't you slap it with sanctions.
Punishments for poaching aren't light in Africa. The problem is that unlike China, African countries don't have the resources to fight poachers and oftentimes poachers are better equipped than rangers.
Perhaps they need to start using a death penalty against poachers.Right now serving some time in jail is probably a free meal ticket for the entire sentence for many of the poachers themselves but if they just faced a firing squad perhaps they would think twice about doing it ?
Same goes for any ranger / warden that accepts a bribe- accomplice to poaching- death penalty.
Yeah it's incredibly harsh but how else are you supposed to scare these people into not wanting to harm endangered wild life ? They don't care about the animal itself, all they know is that it's worth a lot of money and they have to eat
Same goes for any ranger / warden that accepts a bribe- accomplice to poaching- death penalty.
Yeah it's incredibly harsh but how else are you supposed to scare these people into not wanting to harm endangered wild life ? They don't care about the animal itself, all they know is that it's worth a lot of money and they have to eat
I know, but maybe you'll have something halfway sustainable in like 30, 40 years
You are looking at humanity from a micro point of view and at cancer from a macro one.
If you want to compare them properly, look at them from a same macro pov. Maybe you'll realize both share a strikingly similar behavior.
Lamel
Banned
Read the whole thread before jumping on my post. I respond further.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
You just talking or are you serious? Since in a lot of areas its pretty much fighting a war with the poachers with little in the means of compensation.
This so much, I hate how it sounds but asian people with this bogus superstitious shit can go die in a fire.
Ivory is the SAME DAMN THING, it's just teeth, urrrgh this is what really pisses me off the most, there's nothing special about it.
There should be more people scamming the dumbasses who buy this stuff for their "magical" properties, it isn't even that hard to fake.
While this is horrible, and I think it's really despicable that this is a source of money - but it makes me really uncomfortable how easily and readily people are willing to write off human life in this thread.
If in reality, these poachers really were people who were on the brink of starvation (I think actually sometimes, some of them are - maybe not ring leaders, but hired hands) I would at least be able to comprehend this need to kill an endangered animal to survive. I, without hesitation, would do so myself if it really was an either or situation.
The solution isn't to kill people indiscriminately and/or wish for their death/starvation. That attitude is absolutely disgusting and those who profess it in this thread I hope have some tiny dredge of morality in them that finds it abhorrent that they've stooped so low.
The solution is to raise the quality of life for everyone, and to reduce the value of ivory.
If in reality, these poachers really were people who were on the brink of starvation (I think actually sometimes, some of them are - maybe not ring leaders, but hired hands) I would at least be able to comprehend this need to kill an endangered animal to survive. I, without hesitation, would do so myself if it really was an either or situation.
The solution isn't to kill people indiscriminately and/or wish for their death/starvation. That attitude is absolutely disgusting and those who profess it in this thread I hope have some tiny dredge of morality in them that finds it abhorrent that they've stooped so low.
The solution is to raise the quality of life for everyone, and to reduce the value of ivory.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Unfortunate thing is once bullets start flying words have little to no meaning. Which is generally what happens when armed poachers and rangers meet. *Edit Problem being is that one side keeps trying to up the other in order to protect themselves, which is why in some regions it has literally become a war between the two factions with how they need to be equipped.
That and problem stems way past just the issue here of "poaching to survive" and has to do a lot with the country itself. Things of course vary depending on which country within the African continent.
While not the same you hear similar stories about illegal fishing, pirates etc.
Gentleman Jack
Member
I bet there are a lot of parallels between East African piracy and poaching in Zimbabwe. Both in the desperate life situation currently pushing a once agrarian society to such unsustainable, violent economies and in the rather bloodthirsty reactions it evokes from bystanders.
Mystic bullshit quackery and simple greed don't have time for your facts, pal.
a Master Ninja
Member
Dumping poison in a source of fresh water is just dumb even separated from the morality of it all.
ComputerMKII
Banned
I wouldn't try to fight an elephant even with a .500 S&W Magnum caliber.
kame-sennin
Member
Monochromaticx
Member
.....they make the Boy Scout who damaged 200 million year old rock formation look like a saint. LEAVE THE ELEPHANTS ALONE!!
People assign it value, like actual gold. Gold is just a mineral but wealth is assigned to it. Same with ivory in this case apparently.
Legendary_Red
Banned
ElbowRocket
Member
More ivory cutlery for Bob Mugabe
CyclopsRock
Member
What's confusing you?
TheContact
Member
Poachers are fucked up human beings
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