Elephant Poaching | Teen Ink

Elephant Poaching

April 25, 2013
By Anonymous

Elephant poaching is a main conflict in our world today. Poaching can never be completely put to an end, but it can be decreased a great deal if the Africans and Asians could consider Hunting by means of Conservation. “Trophy hunting, purely as sport and as a conservation action, is now being considered for adoption in Kenya, as such programs appear to have yielded positive results in the other Africa countries of Namibia and South Africa under a community managed conservation programme titled,’ Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM)” If elephant hunting is controlled, than people with money will spend a lot of money on hunting licenses and everything else that goes along with an African Safari. All of that money earned through hunting will then trickle down through the community. Many other benefits that come from hunting are that that hunter needs support to hunt those animals, so an outfitter is hired, he makes sure there is enough food, sleeping bags, ect., because an African Safari can last 60 or more days. When hunters go on an African Safari, they stay there for a great amount of time, meaning there are many job opportunities that need to be filled by the locals, such as cooks, guides, gun bearers, porters. So now, all of these villagers, some of which are illegally poaching elephants for their tusks, are now able to get a job in the legal hunting industry by working in those job fields, so they can support their families this way instead of the illegal way, risking being put in jail or even being shot at. It is important to understand that those jobs would not have been there if it weren’t for that hunter who was willing to pay a lot of money to hunt these animals. All in effect, the hunter’s money leads to jobs for the villagers, the villagers no longer want or need to kill the elephants for their tusks anymore since they have jobs now, and further more they want to actually protect those elephants so more hunters are willing to come and spend that money to hunt those elephants. The policy of trophy hunting has already been adopted in 23 Sub-Saharan African countries. The income generated in total from these African countries is quoted to be USD 201 million/year, derived from about 18,500 international hunting clients covering an area of 4.1 million km. So by hunting, your not only saving the elephants from extinction, your also saving the lives of the rangers who risk there lives everyday to protect them, there are jobs provided for the African and Asians that are living jobless, and the beautiful forests that surround Africa and Asia.


The author's comments:
My article is taking a stand against poaching. I also include some solutions to help poaching get better.

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