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I'm curious how the alternative strategy would play out: farming rhinos and elephants for their horns.
by rdl 11y ago
I'm curious how the alternative strategy would play out: farming rhinos and elephants for their horns.
- desdiv 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect >The term cobra effect stems from an anecdote set at the time of British rule of colonial India. The British government was concerned about the number of venomous cobra snakes in Delhi. The government therefore offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially this was a successful strategy as large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, causing the cobra breeders to set the now-worthless snakes free. As a result, the wild cobra population further increased. The apparent solution for the problem made the situation even worse.
- adamnemecek 11y agoHow would this scenario protect elephants in the wild? Or would the extinction of species depend on the demand for products made from these species?
- gizmo686 11y agoIt would increase supply of ivory, and therefore drive down the price, making it less profitable to hunt wild elephants.
- adamnemecek 11y agoThat's like an extreme simplification of the situation. a.) Less profitable does not mean non-profitable. Currently, the poachers are being paid couple hundreds of dollars for a pair of tusks which are worth like $350K on the black market. There is no way that legalization would drive price low enough for poaching to be non-profitable. b.) Price of ivory for poachers is $0. Price of ivory for ranchers is $0+. How do you solve this?
- aianus 11y agoThe price is not zero, it's the risk of getting caught and doing ten years in African prison.
- adamnemecek 11y agoValue of life in Africa isn't much unfortunately.
- rdl 11y agoIf the price got lower there would probably be less poaching. Combine that with funded-via-non-poaching campaigns against poachers. And organizations like http://vetpaw.org/ http://vetpaw.org/
- adamnemecek 11y ago> If the price got lower there would probably be less poaching. You are making a ton of assumptions about the behavior of the market that I'm assuming you have nothing to back up with. But provide some links if you have anything, I'm all ears. > Combine that with funded-via-non-poaching campaigns against poachers. And organizations like http://vetpaw.org/ http://vetpaw.org/ Yes, what about them? They are increasing the price?
- userbinator 11y agoElephants take a long time to mature, so this would be a really really long-term plan, even ignoring the other problems such as where to find the space to keep them, and what to do with the rest of the animal besides the tusks... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant#Birthing_and_calves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant#Birthing_and_calves Gestation in elephants typically lasts around two years with interbirth intervals usually lasting four to five years. Adulthood starts at about 18 years of age in both sexes.[127][128] Elephants have long lifespans, reaching 60–70 years of age. Producing synthetic ivory would probably be much cheaper and cost-effective way to get the same material.
- venomsnake 11y ago>and what to do with the rest of the animal besides the tusks... Nothing a very big slow cooker can't solve.
- throwaway2048 11y agoyou dont have to kill elephants to harvest their tusks
- gambiting 11y agoPachers kill elephants that had their tusks cut off already, to extract the tiny last bit of ivory remaining in their skulls. That's why strategies of cutting tusks off regular elephants and destroying them were unsuccessful - if anything, they made poachers more aggressive, since now they had to kill more elephants to get any amount of ivory at all.
- L-four 11y agoThe idea is that if elephants are owned. The owner would protect their investment in order to profit from the elephant in the furture when the tusks grow back.
- rdl 11y agoMy other thought-experiment solution would be mixing in lethal substitutes for ivory/rhino horn/etc. early in the supply chain, with the goal being deleterious effects on end users, reducing demand. Although it would be more ideal if it actually killed people involved in the supply line, but there are too many unwitting couriers (common carriers, etc) to make that reasonable. A more palatable version of this would be a campaign about pre-existing health consequences of using this stuff in TCM, followed by flooding the market with synthetics claimed to be safer/more efficacious.
- Asbostos 11y agoKilling people to save animals is a bit perverse. Some problems aren't so severe that they should be solved at such extreme costs. The same was done during prohibition - and people kept drinking the methanol-spiked alcohol and kept dying. It wasn't enough of a deterrent.