Conservation Efforts

     Kind of a gloomy blog, huh? animals poached from zoos, young animals orphaned and dying because they're too young to survive and their mothers were poached, the rapid decline of a species already almost extinct because some fool has the idea that a part of it can heal or make women love him. But that's the point I'm trying to make. We need to do something in order to prevent another species from going extinct. Humans already have a bad rep--the Dodo bird, the Passenger pigeon, the Tasmanian tiger (also known as the Thylacine, others call it the Tasmanian wolf). Why add another species to that list? there are probably even more animals on that list, whose names I don't know, or who never had a name--passing into extinction due to our pollution of the environment before even being discovered.
        So what can we do? Well, (and I believe that these have come up before) there is a game farm in South Africa that removes the horn--leaving a stump that will grow back--to deter poachers, which seems to be working. (A game farm is a place where some of the animals raised there are sold when the population is too big to be supported by the resources there in order to keep those resources available to the animal's population. The money goes to aid conservation efforts.) There have been efforts to capture and put radio collars on tigers, in order to study their movements. Another article states that there have been plans to take the last thousand females, protect them, and give them the chance to breed, hoping that their offspring will spread into other area of habitat previously occupied by tigers (as it has become a situation--ironically--of too few tigers for their available land. Most of the time, it's the other way around.)  A cheetah conservation project utilizes not only GTS collars to track the cheetah, but also a database that records a cheetah's footprint and uses it to identify an individual.  And the Nairobi nursery of the David Sheldric Wildlife Trust is the most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation center in the world, most of the animals there are orphans due to poaching or human-wildlife contact. The elephants, once healed, will move to two holding centers where they will live until they feel ready to leave and be wild animals again. TRAFFIC and CITES monitor and regulate the trade in animal and plant species, and TRAFFIC also has awareness campaigns aimed at the souvenir trade.
      But what can you do, personally? For one thing, you can be more aware of what you buy. Don't purchase an animal for a pet if it is a member of an endangered species, or of a species of wild animal in general--no matter how cute it is (many become hard to take care of as they mature, and can end up released into the area and cause havoc). When buying a souvenir, be careful and try not to buy products made from animal parts, because you probably won't be able to tell if it was poached or not. The same is true for purchasing coral and shells. You can't tell if you are contributing to the loss of a species.








                                       Sources:

 
          traffic.org. TRAFFIC, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.

         Gwin, Peter. "Rhino Wars." National Geographic Mar. 2012: 106-23.
 Print.nationalgeographic.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2012.
           Hance, Jeremy. "Tiger brutally killed in zoo, body parts taken to sell for Chinese   medicine." mongabay.com. N.p., n.d. 25 Aug. 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.
           

...And Poaching

    *This is the third part of the extremely long post that was originally titled "Rhinos, Rangers, and Poaching", but due to its length became three posts. I hope this didn't cause any inconveniences for anyone reading this blog. *
      By now you have probably read the other parts to this "series", and are wondering how animals affected by poaching are similar to people being affected by poaching. To understand this, though, we need to look at the ways these poachers actually do their poaching.
     Poachers are getting more advanced and deadly. On top of many different traps (which we will get to in a minute), they also have access to veterinary drugs, poison, crossbows, and high caliber weapons.  And on top of that, roads cutting through the habitat suited to a species can give a poacher easy access to the animals living in that area, even if the purpose of the road is to get from one city to the next. Such was the case in Russia, where a project done jointly by the Wildlife Conservation Society's Hornocker Wildlife Institute and the Sikhote-Alin State Biosphere Zapovednik monitered the road connecting the town Terney and Plastun and found that four of the five tigresses that used that territory at some point were poached.(This article, from Wildlife Conservation Magazine, was published in 2002) Animals do not understand that they should watch out and stay away--if there is good a food supply and the territory is unoccupied, that's where they'll live. And, of course, where there is a road, animals will get hit. (But that is beside the point.) 
     There are many different kinds of traps that a poacher may use. Below is a list of traps and their basic function. Please don't try making or using these at home!

   Snare Wires:

Cable wires of different lengths.They are tied to trees in a position that allows it to tangle around the animal's neck. The animal strangles itself as it tries to escape. Used by poachers in Tanzania and Kenya.

  Spears and Dogs:

The quarry is chased and speared, the hunter using dogs to disorient and in some cases subdue it. The dog may wear a bell to scare the target out of hiding.

 Pitfalls:

Traps dug to catch larger animals, like buffalo or zebra. The pits are dug in the path of the target, then covered up with grass and trees to hide them. The target is either chased or provoked into following a hunter, and falls into the pit while crossing it. Then the hunter will kill the animal, usually only taking a little bit-such as the teeth or ivory--and leave the rest. The part that is taken is sold to dealers

  Trap Nets:

A net is spread out in an area, and the hunter will chase the animal toward it, sometimes using dogs to help chase the target.The unlucky animal will get tangled in the net, and then get speared by the poachers.

Bows and Arrows:

Usually made of local forest products. It is said that hunters like the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo use poisoned arrow tips.

Other Traps:

Again, mainly of local materials. Communities in the Rwenzori area make snare-like traps for small animals. Another common one is a steel trap that looks somewhat like a horseshoe. The trap is on the ground and the animal gets trapped by stepping on it.

This image's caption explains the whole thing: "Indonesian poachers use a barking puppy as bait to lure tigers into a trap."

 

At first glance, this just looks like a scared tiger cub. But it's missing a front paw. The following is the actual caption: "A poacher's snare cost this six-month-old cub its right front leg—and its freedom. The limb was amputated after the tiger had been enmeshed for three days in a snare in Aceh Province, Indonesia. Unable to hunt, the tiger now lives in a zoo on Java."

     

This is the same cub as the last photo--right after its leg was amputated--you are able to clearly see the bandage. THIS is a consequence of poaching. The following caption contains more information: "Two veterinarians and a ranger hold a tiger cub after amputating its leg. The cub had been trapped in a snare in Aceh Province, Indonesia. In addition to wire snares, poachers use box traps, guns, steel-jaw traps, electrocution traps, and poison. Usually used for poaching wild pigs or deer, snares occasionally catch tigers by accident."



      Believe it or not, in addition to extinction, poaching has affects you may not know about. On us. For instance, although extinction is the most direct impact, poaching has also been thought to impact the spread of disease.It is though tin the Congo that the Ebola virus was transmitted to people who ate monkey meat, who then passed  it on to other humans. The outbreak of Anthrax in Uganda in early 2000 was believed to be a result of people eating or transporting infected animals from the Queen Elizabeth National Park.

    There are also people who have been hurt because they stepped on a poacher's trap. Most of them are women and children who went into the forest for food, firewood, or other resources. A horseshoe-like trap (below) can cause broken legs and even death.

   

                                                     --Skyepika

                                                       Sources:

          Braun, David. "South Africa, Zimbabwe epicenter of rhino poaching crisis, data show." newswatch.nationalgeographic.com. N.p., 1 Dec. 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.

       Alexander, Caroline. "A Cry for the Tiger." National Geographic Dec. 2011: 62-87. Print.

        Peter, Magelah. "Poaching." eoearth.org. N.p., 5 Oct. 2007. Web. 24 Apr. 2012.

Goodrich, John, Dale Miquelle, Linda Kerley, and Evgeny Smirnov. "Time for Tigers." Wildlife Conservation Feb. 2002: 22-29. Print.