Essay --

Madison Jones ENG 102-BC07 Ms. Keltz 2/13/14 The elephant population is struggling to keep its species alive. Poaching is causing more deaths and causing the decrease in population than natural deaths would be. Because of this, there are less than 500,000 left in the world and they could potentially go extinct within 15 years if nothing is done to save and protect them(Herrington 5). Before, there were millions of elephants around the world but there has been a drastic decline worldwide. In 1980 there were over one million elephants, by 1989 more than 600,000 elephants were killed(Christ 32). Those 600,000 killed elephants were over half of the elephant population. If this keeps declining at this rate, the whole elephant population will be extinct. This proves that the poaching is becoming so unmanageable. Therefore, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is trying to do something to manage and prevent poaching and the decline of the population. Hunting is considered poaching and illegal when it is not the right time, location, number killed, method or the species being hunted(Farmer). Elephants would not be hunted if they did not have ivory that is so valuable. If there was no demand for ivory or an ivory trade, there would not be any poaching. The commercial poachers hunt for a profit, and the subsistence poachers hunt for survival, both are harming the population(Farmer). If the government does not enforce this, then they poaching will not stop and it will get as bad as it was in the 1980’s when the population was decreasing much more rapidly than it is now. Ivory is used and prized for many things. It is used in carvings or may be painted. It is prized and very valuabl... ...(Steinmetz). This really helped the tigers that were almost extinct. Since this resulted in positive outcomes, the WWF decided to spread the knowledge and ideas to communities and schools all around. Meetings were scheduled and the information was spread quickly. All signs of poaching started being monitored and since 2008, the WWF noticed a decrease in evidence of weaponry(Steinmetz). In 2011, the park rangers found less shotgun shells and camps were they would hideout(Steinmetz). This experience obviously shows the power a community can have when they work together to reach a common goal. If the WWF didn’t try, who knows what would have happened to all the species at risk in Thailand. The WWF just needs to expand and present this information to all the other countries and communities who have animals at risk and the poaching could potentially end completely.