Pegu was ready. He came upon a mother rhino feeding with her calf. Got out his rifle. Shooting a rhino is like shooting a barn: when you take aim, they stop and stare, deciding whether to charge. Pegu shot the mother dead, hacked off her horn, and left the baby standing there...Much more at the long link about this very complicated environmental and social issue.
As soon as he fired, [park rangers] closed on the spot. Unlike most guards in most parks in India, they were armed. And they had license to kill.
Pegu saw the guards first and opened fire. Missed. The guards took cover. As the shooting continued, one guard calmly raised his antique .303 Lee Enfield rifle to his shoulder, lined up Pegu in his sights, and blew his head off.
Pegu’s accomplice was shot in the hip by another guard. An hour later, he, too, had died “from his injuries,” according to the park’s report...
I try to envision a ranger in the U.S. doing the same. But nothing in Kaziranga is like anything in the U.S. There’s the superdense concentration of tigers, rhinos, and elephants—and the fact that they’re thriving. The sheer value of that wildlife on the black market. The grinding poverty of the surrounding villages. And the tsunami of money and demand pouring out of China...
Kaziranga has about 100 of Asia’s remaining 2,000 Bengal tigers, the highest density of any park in the world. Its tiger population continues to increase—in sharp contrast to the rest of India, where poaching has reduced Bengal tiger numbers from 3,600 in the 1990s to about 1,700 today. In China, a tiger skin can fetch $20,000, and a large rhino horn will set you back about $37,000...
The guards receive a tiny stipend, a camp to live in, a uniform, a gun, and a few bullets. That’s it. They have to provide their own food and communication device. They have no way of leaving their camps unless they radio for a jeep pickup—not a big problem, since they rarely get a day off to see their families anyway. The chronically strapped Forest Department sometimes goes months without paying them; it hasn’t had the money to hire new guards in 20 years, so there are a hundred unfilled positions, and the existing guards are stretched too thin...
Shooting poachers? A no-brainer. According to Unesco, nine to twelve poachers are shot in Kaziranga each year, and 50 were killed in the nineties alone. Has it worked? Since the peak in 1992, when 48 rhinos were poached, the past decade has averaged fewer than ten poachings per year. In 2010, only five rhinos were shot in Kaziranga, while nine poachers were killed, the first time poacher deaths surpassed rhinos...
Via Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Addendum: The Sydney Morning Herald reports that another park in India is employing similar tactics - this time with armed commandos rather than impoverished park rangers:
Armed commandos are to be deployed in the jungles of southern India to deter poachers from capturing and killing endangered tigers. The 54-strong Special Tiger Protection Force will patrol the two main tiger reserves of Bandipur and Nagarhole national parks on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu state border...
I absolutely agree. Humans are not as important as nearly extinct animals like rhinos, there are too many of us and this is the only poaching can be stopped. It's still not the majority opinion, and western religious folks tend to think that humans are somehow more deserving of life than animals. But those are usually the same folks that seem to have no compunction about executions for criminal activity. This is genocide... and for me there's no question it's the right thing because destruction of the worlds diversity is the worst crime that can be committed today. Humanity's very survival depends on preservation of diversity, and people have to find that out quickly because we're losing habitat, plant and animal life at an alarming rate.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the first anonymous' comment. Nothing succeeds like success.--a.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the "shoot 'em all" response to poaching is that it's very easy to say that when your family isn't living on less than a few dollars a day. It may very well be the case that skins and horns sell for tens of thousands in China but the hunters themselves tend to be among the most desperate people on the planet and will barely ever see a fraction of that amount.
ReplyDeleteI'm obviously only guessing here but if you asked many of them they'd probably agree that it's a shame that so many species are being driven to extinction due to the actions of people like them, but at the same time I'd imagine they feel justified by the fact that they are generally doing it to provide for their family, and not out of greed (having said that I'm sure there's no shortage of people for whom the opposite is true).
As Stan said, it's a very complicated issue so clearly there's no easy answer. I believe that the best way to secure endangered wildlife, or the rain forest etc is to ensure that the people doing the damage have another way to make a living, although I accept that's probably the hardest and most expensive solution.
Alternatively, we could just say that other people's lives aren't as important as the selection of mammals that we've decided absolutely must be protected at all costs and continue shooting poor people.
how about we shoot the idiots who buy and sell, too? Or inoculate the rhinos so that their horns include an ingrediant that will cause a penis to shrivel up and fall off...
ReplyDeleteI do agree with u about the sellers and buyers.But we must stop the horns from being taken in the first place.How would they feel if we went to there house and chopped of somthing from there families for money .Thay wouldnt like that now would they.WE NEED THE POACHERS TO BE SHOT>SHOOT ALL POACHERS!!!!!
DeleteI'm Anonymous #1 -- I hear you Anonymous #3, but it's just not going to work. There is nothing that is going to get one of these poachers anywhere near as much money as one rhino horn would. Many poachers are criminals through and through, part of networks of criminals. But whatever the motive, this is the only hope for these animals -- shoot all poachers.
ReplyDeleteI think it's only logical to shoot the poachers, and probably the only solution. However I love Tom's idea.
ReplyDelete"I'd imagine they feel justified by the fact that they are generally doing it to provide for their family, and not out of greed..."
ReplyDeleteFrom the linked article: [Pegu]"saved enough to invest in three vehicles, a big house, even a plot of land, where he was starting his own tea garden in some sort of psychological stab at legitimacy. While Pegu was bringing down more than $20,000 per year through poaching, his Mishing relations scrabbled to earn $200 a year in the rice paddies."
Poaching to support a family is a different problem that was familiar to the peasants in the forests of medieval kings. That's a different set of questions.
SHOOT ALL POACHERS!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteand give the people who are protecting the animals more then there getting .
Common sense.
We should start a Petition !!!! And give it to the gov! To let them know how serious this problem is!
Okay I think it would be way worse for the poachers if they just traunquilized them and then incarcerated them for life that would definetely serve to ward off the poachers
ReplyDelete