Changemaker Blog Post: Poachers - by Emma-Lee

You can’t just stop poachers, that’s not how it works its way more complicated
than that. The first thing people need to know is that it isn’t so black and white. It’s
not just “poachers are bad” there are different kinds of poachers. The ones who
do it for fun and the ones who do it because they have to. It's important to know
which is which. The ones who poach because they have to need something else
to  turn to and the ones who do it for fun in my opinion need an education or
someone needs to change their minds.

Something most people don’t think of when it comes to poaching is the buyers.
Some people who are most guilty are the buyers. They’re encouraging poaching
by paying big money for animal parts. For example: Poachers poach and then
they sell rhino horns for $65,000 a kilogram in 2012. If there were no buyers,
there wouldn’t be a point for poachers to poach. I think something that would
make a difference to the buyers is seeing pictures of dead animals, seeing that
because of them an innocent animal is dead and missing something, like a rhino
with their horn missing or an elephant with their tusks missing.

Another major problem with poaching is the fact that in some countries it isn’t
even illegal. For example: Female leatherback sea turtles are endangered of
going extinct because they are poached for their eggs, meat and shell. And in 42
countries it is still legal to capture and kill them. There are estimated to be
between 34,000 and 36,000 nesting females left worldwide compared to 115,000
nesting females in 1980. So the first step to stopping poaching should be (in my
opinion) making it illegal.

Source

Shark finning is where poachers capture sharks and remove their fins while
they’re still alive, then drop them back in the water. This is cruel because either
they drown, get eaten by something else or bleed out- Whichever comes first.
They could at least kill the thing instead of giving them a slow painful death.

Source

  The South, Atlantic and Pacific Right Whales are one of the most endangered of all large whales, with a long history of human exploitation and no signs of recovery despite protection from whaling since the 1930’s. The Right Whales were named by whalers who identified them as the “right” whale to kill on a hunt and because of their thick blubber Right Whales float on the water after being killed. There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List, and 16,306 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction. This is up from 16,118 last year. This includes both endangered animals and endangered plants. The plants don’t really count here, but they are definitely important.  In conclusion, almost all 16,306 species are endangered and still being hunted.

Source

Video link

I think that this video gives a great insight on poaching and what they’re doing to
stop it. I also prefer the video over an article because it gives visuals and in my
opinion it's better to actually hear and see who’s talking instead of reading an
article. I think that there is still hope for endangered species to make a comeback.

What you can do to help:  

• Donate to wildlife organizations
• Volunteer
• Spread the word
• Remember to go beyond charismatic creatures