By: Gordon Pherribo

PPoaching is the illegal hunting, killing or capturing of animals.  Poaching can refer to the failure to comply with regulations for legal harvest FFalls under 5 categories: TTime : hunting before hunting season is open, hunting after hunting season is closed. LLocation: can not hunt, capture, kill animals located in wildlife sanctuaries. (For example: national parks, game reserves, and zoos.) NNumber: hunting and capturing over the legal limit. MMethod: using prohibited weapons or traps. For example, baiting a duck with a bait line or shooting deer at night with he aid of a spotlight. SSpecies: no capturing of protected or endangered species

 Poaching is now the greatest threat to many endangered animals.  Industrial lobbyists and special interest groups have blocked most attempts to protect these species.  Poachers getting more sophisticated technology like night vision and heat sensing devices. The untrained, understaffed rangers are no match for the poachers.  Elephants in Zakouma National Park in Chad: ,000; just over 600  Tigers in India: ,700; ,400

AAnimal products, such as hide, ivory, horn, teeth, fins and bone are sold to dealers who make clothes, jewelry and other materials. MMulti million dollar industry AAnimals are poached for religious reasons. Many tribes in Africa consider leopard skin to be magical. As a result, witchdoctors wear the skin as a way to show power. MMany animals are also killed for ceremonial purposes, such as cleansing a bad omen, or asking gods for rain. SSource of local herbs and have medicinal value. LLion’s liver- helps cure skin diseases SShark fins are delicacies  In some African and Latin American societies, animals are poached for game meat. In the Congo, for example, wild monkey meat is sold in the open market.

 While poaching has various effects, its most direct impact is extinction, either globally or locally. Poaching has also been associated with the spread of disease, both in animals and humans. In the Congo, for example, it is believed that the Ebola virus was transmitted to people who fed on monkeys and other primates, who then transmitted the disease to other human beings.  Biologists call it the sixth great extinction, bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.  The loss of biological diversity on Earth is accelerating  Almost over 900 species have gone extinct in the last 500 years, and another 16,000 remain endangered out of the 1.5 million known.

11990 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) banned international ivory sales CConservationists and national governments often discuss how to save the worlds most iconic species, elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, the grey wolf. WWhile we can’t physically prevent poachers, we can encourage governments to take measures to alleviate poverty. FFind alternative ways of livelihood for those desperate enough to kill endangered species for profit. DDonating money to organizations like TRAFFIC and ETS (Equipped to Survive). GGovernments that ban the illegal trade in a species can prevent poaching; for example, in 1992 the U.S. banned the import of wild caught parrots that dramatically reduced that trade by 40%, and a 1989 ban on ivory worldwide saw a massive drop from 10,000 to 100 elephants a year in Tanzania alone. VIDEO: