World Elephant Day: Why It Matters

Same username.

> Let's not. It's cruel, economically and ecologically not feasible. Also this would wouldn't stop poaching in the wild.

How exactly is it different than, say, cattle ranching?

As for depleting a very limited resource - I think we are already doing that now. A 62% decline in population over a 10 year period is not compatible with having elephants in the long term.

As for the cannibalism angle, in 2016 we have mostly achieved more or less global consensus that killing people is generally wrong. We have not at all achieved any such consensus extending that ethic to non-human intelligent species. We generally kill without too much compunction pigs, octopuses, dolphins, and ravens which show evidence of being intelligent. In fact, we even raise pigs just to kill and eat.

> Let's not. It's cruel, economically and ecologically not feasible. Also this would wouldn't stop poaching in the wild.

The status quo is not working. It might be time to try a pragmatic solution over a fundamentalist/moralist one.

> All the other things don't directly cause suffering of an intelligent species

What? All those things directly cause suffering of an intelligent species. That's why people tried to ban them.

> You know what, instead of banning cannibalism, we should regulate human meat consumption.

Cannibalism isn't an issue not because it's banned, but because... well... people generally aren't doing that. There is no demand for human meat.

It seems that the biggest problems with bans happen when a good so heavily demand-driven it becomes profitable for organized crime to form around a black market for that good.

> Let's not. It's cruel, economically and ecologically not feasible.

I think the right question to ask is - is it crueler / environmentally bad than poaching?

> Also this would wouldn't stop poaching in the wild.

It would - if you'd combine verifiable, legally obtainable source with harsh punishment for poachers.

Edited original comment for being too inflammatory.

It is too easy to paint the poachers as an easy comic book villain. The truth is somewhat more complicated. People who are poaching elephants are probably not flying in from developed areas of the country/world to go poach elephants. They are probably locals. Now, given that elephants live in generally undeveloped areas, the people are living in proximity to undeveloped areas.

Also, most likely, the people living in close proximity to the elephant's habitat are not in general rich people who like the view, but are probably the economically marginalized trying to eke out a living and probably are heavily involved in subsistence farming. When you are trying to feed your family, other concerns become secondary. In addition, having elephants around can be very destructive to your farming (one or 2 elephants could probably destroy a year's worth of a family's crops). Thus, people who are forced to live in close proximity to elephants probably do not view them through the same lens as we do, and view them rather as pests.

Now think of this scenario, you are a young man in this situation. A few years ago, some elephants ate your crops and your family really suffered. However, you are not allowed to hurt them because your government (dominated by elites and relatively far away) was influenced by white people from Europe and America to legally protect these animals. Then someone comes to you, provides you with guns and ammo and says that if you kill these animals they will pay you several years worth of what you would make farming. You can use that money to buy medicine for your parents and send your brother and sister to school in the city. In addition, you can stick it to "the man" (government) who is corrupt and caters only to the rich urban needs and not the poor rural people.

Suddenly, poachers don't look so inhuman do they?

Pretty sure you'd have to sedate the elephant. They like to keep their tusks!

Since and elephant would never forget losing its tusks (pun intended), and they learn from each other, I speculate that it would get harder to do this over time. ...Not to say that we couldn't, I mean, we have technology--they don't.

You can harvest ivory without killing the elephant immediately, if you are willing to put in the extra effort to do so. I expect the average poacher isn't.

However, a tusk-less elephant is a severely disabled elephant. You may not have shot it dead on the spot, but someone who de-tusks an elephant for the ivory has very likely killed it anyway.

They won't accept only taking a portion of the ivory and leaving the rest for the elephant. The demand and the value for ivory incentivizes an "all or nothing" approach. That's why you see cases where elephants have been poisoned but their tusks remain in tact. It's because the poachers didn't have enough time to get whole tusks. The people actually poaching the elephants aren't the ones who make the big bucks, so they're likely taught by the traffickers how to obtain the tusks in order to maximize THEIR value.

Right. Specifically, we've only had limited success breeding elephants in captivity.

I have noticed that people underestimate differences between domesticated and wild animals.