You guys should give up. Some people just do not understand the concept of conservation. They simply don't want to understand. They focus on the words "killing" and "extinction" and latch on to them and don't care about the words "responsible management", "renewable resource", and "self sustaining income".
When responsible people are in charge of a renewable resource that generates an income and provides them a way of life, they will value its protection.
In the US, when a hunter goes and buys a hunting license, he is purchasing it from the wildlife and fisheries department. They have employees who monitor/survey/evaluate/study the wildlife. Their job is to make sure the environment is providing a healthy habitat for the survival of the species. If the numbers are down, guess what, the hunting license procured by the hunter allows fewer numbers to be harvested. When population numbers go up, harvesting goes up in order to strive for an equilibrium between the wildlife population and the environment. The hunters themselves who kill <gasp> the animals are helping to fund the management of the populations to guarantee the survival of the species in the future.
A good example of this is the American alligator. This is a quote from Wikipedia.
"Historically, alligators were depleted from many parts of their range as a result of market hunting and loss of habitat, and 30 years ago many people believed their population would never recover. In 1967, the alligator was listed as an endangered species (under a law that preceded the Endangered Species Act of 1973), meaning it was considered in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.
A combined effort by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, state wildlife agencies in the South, and the creation of large, commercial alligator farms were instrumental in aiding the American alligator's recovery. The Endangered Species Act outlawed alligator hunting, allowing the species to rebound in numbers in many areas where it had been depleted. As the alligator began to make a comeback, states established alligator population monitoring programs and used this information to ensure alligator numbers continued to increase. In 1987, the Fish and Wildlife Service pronounced the American alligator fully recovered and consequently removed the animal from the list of endangered species. The Fish and Wildlife Service still regulates the legal trade in alligator skins and products made from them."
Did you follow that? The American alligator was on the endangered species list. What was the solution? The solution was wildlife management and commercial farming <gasp>. Hunting of the alligator was banned, monitoring and breeding programs were created (costs money), commercial farms were created (generates money), and then controlled hunting was re-instituted (generates more money). As a result, the population is healthy and striving without any threat to the longevity of the species. That is how conservation is supposed to work. Because alligators are not as majestic looking as an elephant and don't have the stigma attached to them that ivory has, people around the world were not trying to tell the US what to do and not do with their alligators. I don't have an ivory tusk in my display cabinet, but I do have an alligator head bought from Florida in my display cabinet.
It can work with elephants also. Elephants require a great deal of space per head. Someone said cattle has more of an affect on the environment than elephants. That is laughable. Perhaps collectively since cattle is in nearly every country in the world, but not per head.
It has been said over and over again. When a herd is closely managed and the sale of ivory is regulated, an elephant is not harvested FOR its ivory. An elephant is harvested for the good of the herd. Either it does not exhibit the best traits for survivability, it is old, it can no longer reproduce, it is weak, or the population is up and a population cull is warranted. When the animal is responsibly harvested, the reservation will generate income from the ivory, the hide, the meat will be used, etc. Some of the money will buy guns and bullets so the workers who are paid (there is that need for income again) to take care of the herd are a threat to poachers. Those workers will be making a living from managing and taking care of the herd, and will protect that living and honor the existence of the elephant. Poachers do not do that.
Poachers who would come in and kill an animal and cut the tusks and run leaving the carcass to rot will be robbing the reservation from many thousands of dollars. The threat is to both the elephant and the way of life of those who manage the herd. They won't take kindly to that, and neither will the courts when a poacher is caught. If there is no income and no thriving way of life threatened by poachers, then poaching has little consequence to those doling out sentences. But, if poachers are robbing money from the reservations, robbing tax money from the government, and threatening a way of life, they will be taken more seriously and judged more harshly. Guess what? Poaching will nearly stop.
As the population of the herd goes up and down, numbers that are allowed to be harvested goes up and down. The price of ivory and other elephant products goes up and down with it. This ensures the survivability of the species. That is conservation.
Kelly
