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Poaching
What is Poaching?
Poaching is illegally hunting, killing or capturing of animals. There are many reasons why people poach animals. Some people poach for an animal's body parts and are then sold to people who can make jewellery, clothes and other materials from the products. Another reason includes the claiming of land for human use. Most poaching happens in Zimbabwe, which is a country in Africa. The country where poaching is most common next is Kenya which is also a country in Africa. More than half of the world's poaching happens in Africa because of the rarity of animals that live there. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned ivory trading in 1990 which is why poaching is so rife
Why is Poaching Bad?
Poaching is bad for many reasons but the main reason being that poaching can lead onto extinction of an animal or species. Extinction is when an animal ceases to exist because all of its kind have died out meaning you cannot breed the species to reproduce. Many animals that are being poached are endangered. This means that there are not a lot of the animal's kind but still a few. Many endangered animals are protected or taken into zoos. They are taken into zoos to be bred mainly beacuse at the zoos the animlas are highly unlikely to be poached. However, in March 2017, poachers broke into a zoo near Paris, shot and killed a four year old Southern White Rhino called Vince and removed one of his horns using a chainsaw. This was thought to be the first attack of its kind inside a zoo in Europe.
Once bred and grown up many of the animals get released back into the wild because it is their natural habitat afterall, they would be happier.
Where do they Sell?
The black market is most likely going to be where items like ivory get sold. It is an illegal trade market where lots of things get sold, including illegal drugs, human organs needed for transplant surgeries weapons, and exotic and protected species of animals. Most ivory gets sold in China with over 70% of ivory ending up there. A horn can earn a poacher roughly $150 000. A rhino's horn could sell for $60 000 or more per kilogram on the black market. The ivory trade is also a popular market for selling ivory. It sells ivory from animals like walruses, hippopotamuses, narwhals, mammoths, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants for their tusks. The demand for rhino horn and ivory comes from Hong Kong, Vietnam and Japan.
Why do People Poach?
Chinese traditional medicine believes that Rhino's horns and ivory in general have medicinal healing properties. Some even believe that they can save lives in some cases! However, this is simply not true. In fact, a rhino horn has the same medicinal effect as biting and chewing on your fingernails, AKA none. However, in Hong Kong, ivory is seen as a precious metal and is used in ornaments and jewellery.