Poaching: A different cause

Elephants’ tusks or ivory are enlarged canine teeth. There is also a third tusk hidden embedded in elephants’ heads. The third tusk is made out of tissue, blood  and nerve cells. Elephants’ tusks never stop growing; however, average sized tusk has decreased during recent years due to the “big tusk gene” becoming increasingly rare. In just a decade, Central Africa has lost sixty-four percent of its elephants. There is 100,000 elephants killed in just a time of  three years. Only in 2011, one in a twelve elephants were killed by a poachers.

If you look at the views of the elephants poachers, they killed the elephants and took their tusks just because they need money. Hunger was the initial drive for them to take action. If not, the poachers would starve to death. Starvation does not occur only to the poachers themselves, but also occurs to their whole family. Elephant poaching is a very fast and easy way for the people in poor countries (especially Africa) to survive. The government has done something to stop it, by turning some of the poachers into rangers. They promised these people money, but none of them have received a single dollar. They need money to survive and waiting is not a good answer for them.   

Another reason is that there is an upward demand in ivory products from China. This lure has brought the illegal ivory trade back to South African wildlife habitats. Before this, the demand for ivory came from the Western side; however, recently, it has shifted toward Asia. As demand gets high, with low supplies, surely prices get higher. This again attracts poachers who really need money in order to survive. One of them said, “If I had money, I have nothing to do with the elephants”, while the other mentioned “I’m wishing that whoever wants to conserve elephants assist us in getting jobs”.


A lot of us are against elephant poaching; believe it or not, so do the poachers. It is just they really do not have any other choice. They do not feel good for doing it, some even feel guilty. Constructing wildlife protection groups is an ideal way to solve the problem, but not the best way. The real problem comes from the lack of jobs for these poor people. If only they had income, they would not be doing these things. If it were you standing to their position, this may be the best decision you can make.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygHH40MAL7w