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I've been thinking about this lately as I've seen a few stories about poaching recently. Last week it was about turtles in Mozambique (exotic pets in Thailand).

by cletus 9y ago

I've been thinking about this lately as I've seen a few stories about poaching recently. Last week it was about turtles in Mozambique (exotic pets in Thailand). Last year it was small dolphins in the Sea of Cortez (a casualty of the market for fish bladders as an aphrodisiac in China). There are also pangolins in Indonesia (Asian delicacy). Try as we might to stop the poaching I really feel like the only way to solve this problem is by killing the demand. Honestly I don't know how to do this. It just seems like efforts to quell the supply side will be ultimately futile for animals that by definition wander in uninhabited areas and are open to poaching. What's sad about this is how much of it is completely pointless (Chinese "medicine") and how when certain species get endangered, it just drives up the value and makes them even more of a status symbol. Sometimes it feels like we're heading towards (or are already in) a mass extinction event where we'll be the likely biggest victims.

oculusthrift 9y ago
I was thinking about this recently as well. It almost seems better to just own the rhinos (or whichever animal) because then at least they have the incentive to keep them alive and keep them from being extinct.
yawz 9y ago
On the medicinal front: maybe we can accept these idiocies as scientific truths and produce artificial alternatives (placebos to things that don't really work) that are cheaper?
gambiting 9y ago
Flood the market with powdered keratin, sold as 100% certified african rhino horn, for couple dollars a kg. At least theoretically, you will eliminate all poaching overnight.
DrScump 9y ago
One group darts rhinos and injects the horn with a dye, rendering the horn worthless for poaching. The U.S. TV series "Gorongosa Park: a Rebirth"[0] shows park stewards trying to rebuild tourism, with one goal being better employment options (as guides, rangers, etc.) than poaching. Some of their elephants don't develop tusks at all, an apparent mutation that increases survival odds. [0] http://www.pbs.org/gorongosa/home/ http://www.pbs.org/gorongosa/home/

by cletus 9y ago

oculusthrift 9y ago

I was thinking about this recently as well. It almost seems better to just own the rhinos (or whichever animal) because then at least they have the incentive to keep them alive and keep them from being extinct.

yawz 9y ago

On the medicinal front: maybe we can accept these idiocies as scientific truths and produce artificial alternatives (placebos to things that don't really work) that are cheaper?

gambiting 9y ago

Flood the market with powdered keratin, sold as 100% certified african rhino horn, for couple dollars a kg. At least theoretically, you will eliminate all poaching overnight.

DrScump 9y ago

One group darts rhinos and injects the horn with a dye, rendering the horn worthless for poaching. The U.S. TV series "Gorongosa Park: a Rebirth"[0] shows park stewards trying to rebuild tourism, with one goal being better employment options (as guides, rangers, etc.) than poaching. Some of their elephants don't develop tusks at all, an apparent mutation that increases survival odds. [0] http://www.pbs.org/gorongosa/home/ http://www.pbs.org/gorongosa/home/