People are selling and exchanging wild animal parts – including food, pets, leather, ornaments, “trophies,” or “medicine,” at a crisis level illegally and unsustainably. This is not a simple issue, but one filled with examples of the intense pressures of poverty, lack of training in enforcement, governmental corruption, and the careless demand for wildlife products by global consumers. Poachers, the pawns of a much larger international game of illegal trade, enter protected areas or target endangered species prized for their “parts” (worth hefty sums in black markets), armed with weapons like grenades and AK-47s to create devastation. They are markers of economic desperation, fueled by the prospect of payouts from buyers, kingpins and smugglers from domestic and foreign markets demanding those rare commodities or “trophies” like ivory, horns, skins, pets and meat. Defeating just individual poachers is not the answer, but part of a much larger puzzle of international trade and demand. And it is a problem which is only growing...
more: Jane's Traffic Stop:The Fight to End Illegal Wildlife Trafficking
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