Chinese Customs Seize Nearly 8 Tons of Elephant Ivory

​worldanimalnews.com/breaking-china-customs-seizes-nearly-8-tons-of-elephant-ivory-from-smuggling-attempt/

Chinese customs intercepted a massive quantity of elephant ivory this past week marking the second largest bust of illegal ivory in history. Chinese officials have made a serious effort to stop illegal wildlife trafficking a priority and prevent future shipments by changing the attitude and consumer demand for these products by intercepting them at the border. Since the beginning of 2019, their efforts have resulted in the the activities of 27 criminal gangs having been disrupted, 171 suspects arrested and 500.5 tons of endangered animals confiscated, including 8.48 tons of ivory.

Illegal wildlife poaching is a serious problem that is leading some of the world's most endangered animals towards a path of extinction. Elephants and Rhinos specifically are hunted feverishly for their ivory which is sold through black market vendors. Certain breeds of rhinos have already been poached to extinction and elephants' numbers continue to dwindle because of this. African authorities and anti-poaching units work tirelessly to protect the nation's most vulnerable animals from poaching and most recently, a death penalty was floated around as a punishment for convicted wildlife poaching.

It's not only elephants and rhinos that are imperiled due to poaching. Animals like lions, tigers, leopards, and giraffes are also rapidly declining because of illegal poaching. Africa is working very hard to protect these animals but it doesn't help that there are countries across the globe that are still allowing trophies of these animals to come into their countries which works against conservation efforts. The United States specifically has allowed elephant and lion trophies from trophy hunts to come back into their country which promotes the slaughter of these beautiful animals that are teetering on the edge of endangerment. Our attitude towards trophy hunting MUST CHANGE because no amount of money is worth the extinction of an entire species.

This most recent bust shines a very dim light on a serious problem here that if not curbed, will spell the end of elephants, rhinos, and many more. Illegal poaching specifically is driving these animals to extinction and I find myself wondering what is going through these people's heads. You know, I recently debated about the death penalty in a vegan group online and a lot of them were very much against the death penalty for convicted poaching claiming that these people are often very poor and the idea of big money from these illegally hunted animals is what pushes them to do this so the punishment is too extreme. Although I agree that the death penalty is not something I typically support, we are running out of options here and I wonder if ANY of these people have pondered what their next move will be when they've successfully poached these animals to their extinction?

When it comes to punishments associated with illegal poaching, there are already heavy fines and lengthy jail sentences associated with convictions but these are not working as a deterrent. As this post suggests, people are still out there poaching these animals to their extinction so what do we do at this point? As I said, I do not support the death penalty but we are talking about the annihilation of an entire species here, what do we do about this? I argued that this would hopefully be a deterrent rather than an outcome but frankly, these animals are running out of time and extreme measures MUST be taken to protect what little animals we have left.

It saddens me to think that in my lifetime I could see the end of lions, elephants, and/or giraffes. It saddens me that there are people out there who are literally risking their lives to poach these animals due to poverty. It sickens me to think that these people can't comprehend that they will inevitably end up in poverty again when they've hunted all of these animals in their entirety. The whole situation just sickens and saddens me to my core.

Kudos to China for their efforts to catch illegal trafficking and here's to continued success in stopping illegal poaching!

HAPPY VEG