Poachers hunt another species into extinction

[Ole Humpback]

Source:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45236688/ns/world_news-world_environment/#.TsGf4HJm3Tp

When will the day come that poaching is hated with the same fervor that hunting is? I find it sad that poachers will hunt a species off the planet and we are left to bear the blame & burden of their actions.

 

[R.W.Dale]

This is why China fails. We have viagra and they have no more rhinoceros horn.

posted via tapatalk using android.

 

[Cosmoline]

The people who actually live in the area are always going to have the final say. Traditional "zero tolerance" efforts to ban hunting and attack poachers fail and continue to fail. Unless a wildlife policy makes reasonable accommodations for hunting and traditional use, it's going to turn the locals against the wildlife and that only ever ends one way.

 

[jmstevens2]

Yet we have that here and people poach anyway. They don't think it is fair to pay for a tag or license. or follow the "fair catch" laws. Night vision and scoped rifles out of a pick up truck is common here. Poachers ruined my deer season last year. I am more than a little miffed at Poaching.
I may spend a few evenings with my NVG getting plate numbers for the Wildlife officer this year.

 

[buck460XVR]

Sad as it is, it comes down to money and greed. Those rhinos weren't shot to feed the hungry, they were shot for their horn and everyone just turned their heads. If those rhinos were worth more alive than dead to the locals, they wouldn't now be extinct.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, China has an over-population problem. Maybe if we don't introduce them to Viagra.......but, hell, they probably already counterfeit it.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Political correctness and multiculturalism on one hand and economic interests on the other all being what they are has really prevented a responsible and appropriate worldwide campaign to discredit and ban Chinese mythology as a medical model, even though its annihilative effects on rare species are documented ad nauseum.

 

[barnetmill]

In the wild many more species will become extinct. This is part of a trend that extends back for 9-10 millennia. Man is the hunting ape and unlike most species can kill his chosen prey and then figure out another way to make a living. The native americans wiped out many species including the mammoths, horses, camels, gaint sloths. Europeans and central asians wiped out the mammoths, wooly mammoths, lions , caspain tigers, and many other species. The subSaharan africans are only recently getting in on the extinction game. Perhaps it is sign of human advancement on their account to now have the ability wipe to out other species.

 

[Ole Humpback]

The native americans wiped out many species including the mammoths, horses, camels, gaint sloths. Europeans and central asians wiped out the mammoths, wooly mammoths, lions , caspain tigers, and many other species.

I'm having a hard time buying that considering the other mammalian mega-fauna all went extinct at the same time around 13000 BC which coincides the on set of the last Ice Age. If humans had hunted them to extinction, I don't believe we'd be finding entire herds of these animals in glaciers in Siberia these days.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of evidence to show humans have hunted species to extinction or near extinction (Do-Do's, Whooping Cranes, rhino's, Siberian tigers, ect.), but to say we've been slaughtering machines for the last 15000 yrs is kinda pushing it. We've only had the tools for mass hunting for the last few hundred years and the means & demand for such killing in the last 100-150yrs.

 

[Maple_City_Woodsman]

As long as an animal is more valuable dead, then someone will always be willing to kill it.

 

[HorseSoldier]

I'm having a hard time buying that considering the other mammalian mega-fauna all went extinct at the same time around 13000 BC which coincides the on set of the last Ice Age. If humans had hunted them to extinction, I don't believe we'd be finding entire herds of these animals in glaciers in Siberia these days.

It's pretty much accepted scientific fact that the arrival of humans (or arrival of them in large numbers) was the stressor that killed off the New World megafauna. Other things were going on as well, such as climate/habitat change, that also stressed those populations, but the nail in the coffin was humanity.

Same model repeats itself in pre-historic Australia on a different timeline where the one common event was the arrival of human predators. In both cases, the species that got the axe, so to speak, were the large meals on feet that could sustain a hunting/gathering band from a single kill for some time.

 

[Art Eatman]

Yemen, more than any other place, is the main market for rhino horn. Knife handles, mostly. Last I saw a number, it was around $30,000 for one, delivered there.

SFAIK, the China market is mostly for gall bladders from black bear and antlers in velvet. I think the whiskers of a tiger are another alleged aphrodisiac...

 

[tarosean]

Yemen, more than any other place, is the main market for rhino horn. Knife handles, mostly. Last I saw a number, it was around $30,000 for one, delivered there.

That doesnt surprise me... You will not find one single man, woman or child without a weapon there...

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I'm having a hard time buying that considering the other mammalian mega-fauna all went extinct at the same time around 13000 BC which coincides the on set of the last Ice Age. If humans had hunted them to extinction, I don't believe we'd be finding entire herds of these animals in glaciers in Siberia these days.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of evidence to show humans have hunted species to extinction or near extinction (Do-Do's, Whooping Cranes, rhino's, Siberian tigers, ect.), but to say we've been slaughtering machines for the last 15000 yrs is kinda pushing it. We've only had the tools for mass hunting for the last few hundred years and the means & demand for such killing in the last 100-150yrs.

Sorry, but I am not familiar with these entire herds being found in the glaciers of Siberia. As for only having the tools for mass hunting for the last few hundred years and the means and demand only in the last 100-150, you are completely wrong. Here in North America, Native Americans have conducted mass hunting events for the last several thousand years with large fauna (bison) and even rabbits.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ar...A#v=onepage&q=oldest bison drive site&f=false
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...pOJpv511gjH_-goSA&sig2=-05B7j8AMIkH3wKDeAUqTA

While rhino horn has been prized in many Asian countries for medicinal and artistic properties, it is not an aphrodisiac as many westerners believe. For the most part, it is used as a fever reducer.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/rhinoceros/rhino-horn-use-fact-vs-fiction/1178/
http://www.chinese-unicorn.com/qilin/body/contents/17-the-ancient-uses-of-rhinoceros-horn/

 

[USAF_Vet]

This really torques me off. What a waste. I could almost tolerate it if the animals were used to feed a village, but killing it just to cut off it's horn because some backward arse belief in the magical ability of a substance relative to my fingernail is disgusting.

Hopefully there are some being raised in captivity and these creatures can be reintegrated into the wild.

Poachers are bad enough. Poaching a creature into extinction makes my blood boil, especially something like a rhino.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Yeah, and what is really sad is that the horn can be harvested without killing the animal. For a while there were some groups that worked on doing this, but it is a lot of work to tranq a rhino, follow it around until it drops, and the to saw off the horn just outside of the skin. The horn grows back, but it takes a few years. In short, this is a renewable resource, but the poachers to outright kill the animals in order to hack or chainsaw the horn off.

 

[KodiakBeer]

I

t's pretty much accepted scientific fact that the arrival of humans (or arrival of them in large numbers) was the stressor that killed off the New World megafauna. Other things were going on as well, such as climate/habitat change, that also stressed those populations, but the nail in the coffin was humanity.

No, it's not accepted fact at all. The same climatic event that allowed human migration into the new world also allowed new species to migrate in. All the common animals we know today came across from Eurasia, along with the humans. That competition of species is what wiped out the earlier North American animals which were already in decline from the colder climate.

 

[suzukisam]

Look africa is a nasty lawless place where rape, torture, murder, genacide,etc are everyday problems. I had a friend from south africa that said she checked to make sure her rings were never too tight on her hand or they would cut her fingers off if they tried to steal them.. rape and prostitution keep an aids epidemic going. Why does it surprise anyone that they don't care about animals, africans don't care about people. As a general rule. Now beofore someone accuses me of generalizing...I know all aren't bad but it is common place enough to be rampant throughout the continent...

 

[KodiakBeer]

I know all aren't bad but it is common place enough to be rampant throughout the country...

Which country?

 

[suzukisam]

sorry continent.. I was typing from my phone.. the problems are throughout the continent

 

[Double Naught Spy]

All the common animals we know today came across from Eurasia, along with the humans. That competition of species is what wiped out the earlier North American animals which were already in decline from the colder climate.

Um no. A few species came across with humans maybe, but not most or all. A classic example is deer. Deer have a long fossil history in North America predating the arrival of humans. The same can be said for numerous other common animals such as black bear, jackrabbits, cottontails, opossums, armadillos, etc.

 

[KodiakBeer]

Um no. A few species came across with humans maybe, but not most or all. A classic example is deer.

That's perhaps true of some species of deer, but moose, elk, caribou are all old world species that are relatively new. Brown/grizzly bears, wolves, foxes are all recent arrivals across the land bridge.

North American was a very different place before the most recent ice age.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

That's perhaps true of some species of deer, but moose, elk, caribou are all old world species that are relatively new. Brown/grizzly bears, wolves, foxes are all recent arrivals across the land bridge.

I got news for you. All the common animals today don't just consist of moose, elk, caribou, brown/grizzly bears, wolves, and foxes.

And you still seem a bit confused on your entry dates of species into the New World. Wolves entered the New World some 1.8 million years ago. The Gray Wolf did come across, but the Eastern Gray Wolf developed here in North America along with the Coyote between 150-300 kbp. In short, they were already here when humans arrived.
http://www.searchingwolf.com/wevolve.htm

As for the moose being new and unique to post-Pleistocent New World humans, that isn't really the case. Modern moose (Alces alces) basically replaced the stag moose (Cervalces scotti) in terms of being the big deer on the continent.

And those pesky brown bears were already in place and waiting to eat humans when humans started really moving into the New World. This is because the bears moved in at about 26,000 years ago, ahead of most humans.

Yes, pre-Pleistocene, Pleistocene, and post-Pleistocene New World taxa and environs were all different, no doubt about it, but most of the common animals around us today did not come across the land bridge during the Pleistocene. A few did, but not most as you stated.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Defending-the-Rhino.html?c=y&page=2

This article notes that part of the reason for the spike in recent rhino horn trade is the belief that it will cure cancer.

 

[two gun charlie]

well not to worry people , we are solving the problem the african way , we have recently begun to dart rhino's and then we inject a certain type of poison into the horn , it does no harm to the rhino , and should the rhino ever get poached the end user will still get stiff , just not in the area he was hoping for
( and yes I am being very serious , this practise has raised more than just eyebrows around here , but like one of the rangers doing this has said , so far we have heard no complaints from the chinese)