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Elephant Poaching, What Can We Do to Stop It? Essay Example

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Elephant Poaching, What Can We Do to Stop It? Essay Example
In the year of 1977, 1.3 million elephants lived in Africa. Twenty years later only sixty thousand remained. In that same time period Kenya’s elephant population decreased by 87%. By the year 2006 there was only ten thousand elephants living in the wild in Africa. Elephant poaching is still a continuing threat to the population of elephants there. Elephant poaching is the illegal hunting of elephants. In a number of African countries elephant poaching is legal, but it is illegal to import it elsewhere. I aim to discuss reasons for preventing elephant poaching altogether.

Elephants are poached for their ivory tusks. These can be made into ornaments, piano keys, pool/snooker balls et cetera. Until plastics were introduced ivory was an extremely popular substance. Around twenty tonnes of ivory was smuggled out of African countries last year. Recent studies show that elephants aren’t only killed for their tusks, but also for their meat.

Scientists are currently developing a pepper spray bomb to get elephants off land of some farmers, because they believe them to be pests. This quote was taken from WWF “There has been some resolution to this problem from scientist, that have invented a pepper-spray bomb that chases away the elephants by attacking their eyes with airborne pepper molecules.”
I believe there should be resolutions to keep elephants, not scare them away. The elephants should be dealt with in a more humane manner, instead of permanently damaging their eyes.

Furthermore, in February this year, South Africa has scrapped it’s ban on elephant hunting and is now allowing it. In recent years the elephant population has grown from eight thousand to twenty thousand. A spokesperson from the government described it as being “This will enable us to control the population of elephants in our country”. I believe the population of elephants in this country should be allowed to keep growing. This change will mean thousands of elephants will be killed and could

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