Should Poachers be shot dead?

[Nitro Fun]

Oh I'm hysterical allright, laughing until my ribs are hurting, which really isn't fun when I'm also going through a cold and coughing like a seal.

I guess you don't know what it means then.

[Deletedaccount1]

Animals keep humans alive, so yes, I would sacrifice an entire village for saving a pack of lions, and I'm fairly sure there's more people with the exact same thought. Everything has a balance, and maintaining a balance is more important than to save one human, because one human is insignificant in the grand scheme of life.

Platitudes about the balance of life are nice and all but if you were one of those people in that village, I would imagine that you might not agree with your assessment.

Going off of what you just said, I am just going to assume you would be fine with you and your family dying if a billionaire agreed to give away a lot of money to save the pandas or something on that condition.

No human life is insignificant, "the grand scheme of life" is what an individual experiences and does. It is unique to them. By depriving a person of life you are taking away all the joy and happiness, all the wonderful things that person will ever get to experience and that is an evil thing to do.

[Stelio Kontos]

I have a hard time justifying the killing of people who illegally kill animals when so many people are against capital punishment for killing humans.

[Halyon]

I guess you don't know what it means then.

Search Results
hysterical
hɪˈstɛrɪk(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: hysterical

1.
affected by or deriving from wildly uncontrolled emotion.
"Janet became hysterical and began screaming"
synonyms: overwrought, emotional, uncontrolled, uncontrollable, out of control, unrestrained, unrestrainable, frenzied, in a frenzy, frantic, wild, feverish; More
beside oneself, driven to distraction, in a panic, agitated, neurotic;
mad, crazed, berserk, maniac, maniacal, manic, delirious, unhinged, deranged, out of one's mind, out of one's wits, raving;
informalin a state;
informalswivel-eyed
"Janet became hysterical and began screaming"
antonyms: calm, self-possessed
informal
extremely funny.
"her attempts to teach them to dance were hysterical"
synonyms: hilarious, uproarious, very funny, very amusing, comical, comic, farcical; More
informalhysterically funny, side-splitting, rib-tickling, killing, killingly funny, screamingly funny, a scream, a hoot, a laugh, a barrel of laughs, a laugh a minute
"her attempts to teach them to dance were hysterical"
antonyms: serious
2.
relating to or suffering from hysteria.

Emotions can be positive. But I suppose schadenfreude over your pitiful argument is the most fitting term. And that is also an emotion.

[lavaalamp]

It's not a stupid argument if doing your job gets you killed over an animal.

You do realize Humans are in the Animalia kingdom right? meaning Animals. Humans = Animal. (Just because we're "smart", It doesn't remove us from that group)

So people Who protect Animals Be it Lions, Rhinos, Humans etc. Should just stop Because it's dangerous?

[Halyon]

You do realize Humans are in the Animalia kingdom right? meaning Animals. Humans = Animal. (Just because we're "smart", It doesn't remove us from that group)

So people Who protect Animals Be it Lions, Rhinos, Humans etc. Should just stop Because it's dangerous?

Nono, it's stupid, remember?

[Nitro Fun]

You do realize Humans are in the Animalia kingdom right? meaning Animals. Humans = Animal. (Just because we're "smart", It doesn't remove us from that group)

So people Who protect Animals Be it Lions, Rhinos, Humans etc. Should just stop Because it's dangerous?

You know damn well what I'm talking about so stop acting stupid.

[Deletedaccount1]

Elephants are actually an extremely important keystone species in Africa and Asia. African elephants help keep the savannahs primarily grassland by feeding on seedlings and preventing the spread of forests. They also dig up water holes with their tusks that provide water for other species.

Asian elephants and the African forest subspecies create clearings in forests which allow for new flora to flourish in those areas as well as being pathways for other species. Not to mention that elephants can ingest certain plant species which aren't reachable or toxic to other species and disperse their seeds. In fact many scientists believe that the transformation of rich, arctic grassland in Siberia into low, biodiverse tundra and boreal forest was due (at least in part) to the extinction of mammoths.

As for rhinos, they are serious browsers and grazers which can eat plants that aren't edible to other ungulate species like gazelle due to the presence of thick, thorns. Their shit also assists in fertilizing and stimulating plant growth.

Elephants USED to be an extremely important keystone species in Africa and Asia. Their range is less than 1% of what it used to be and you will almost never find them outside of sanctuaries.

I went to one of those and Thailand and saw the elephants. Each elephant has 1 person assigned to take care of it for life. It's a full time job. The elephants were nice to be around and they were friendly, mostly peaceful creatures. Killing them for ivory is wrong. For meat, probably still wrong since their meat is terrible. I don't wish any harm on them. My main concern is preserving life where possible, that is why I don't think killing poachers is right. It is the same reason why I'm a pacifist and why I don't eat chicken (which cuts down the amounts of animal lives I kill each year by 99%).

[Daws001]

There should be an international team of poacher poachers whose only mission is to hunt and kill poachers. Screw em.

[talwynn]

Uh no...

I like there is some sort of classism going on being the scenes if people think poachers should be shot.

For

1) It's extremely excessive punishment for the actual crime. You're attributing a lot of sentimental value to the animal.

2) What they are doing is/was probably legal in their country. Either way poachers are usually just working class people looking to put food in their bellies. If there wasn't a demand they wouldn't bother shooting the animals. But with limited opportunity and a demand, you throw feelings out of the window

3) Killing a poacher, really? There an insurmountable number of worse crimes that receive far less punishment and stigma.

It's a terrible business, I get that but attack the source of the problem, don't just try to patch up one leak just for another to pop up next to it. What a comment above me said (on my phone otherwise I would @Mention you) the solution is Jobs and education. Not vindictive legislation.

1) Most poachers of large game, particularly African elephants come armed with AK-47's. They are going to fight for their prize. To give you an idea of why, the tusk of a male African elephant averages between 100-175 pounds. The 2015 price for elephant tusk was $2100 USD PER kilo. So a male elephant's tusk could fetch between about $100-150k. Times 2 because they have two tusks. It's not pennies these guys are fighting for, its a MASSIVE business. And you better believe if a corps (yes the countries with these animals are using the military to defend them) shows up while they are in the middle of poaching these animals, they are not just going to sit idly by and be taken into custody. They will fight. Those who do not die in the fire fight are arrested. And to put it into another context, in 1930 it was estimated that there existed about 5-10 million African elephants. Today, it is believed to be less than 500,000 in the wild.

2) There is a difference between hunting for food and poaching. Poaching an elephant means you shoot it, and you rip out it's tusks, doesn't matter if its alive while you do it or not. They do NOT use the animal for anything other than that one product. It is against the law to poach animals. Some countries do allow hunting of these animals but under pretty strict parameters, given there is corruption aplenty behind these, but there is still a massive difference between hunting and poaching. The United States has laws in place about the importation of ivory with very specific stipulations to when you can bring in unprocessed ivory.

3) Technically yes, there are worse crimes against humans. But science is proving that elephants are fully emotional beings capable of being empathetic. I mean hell, they shed tears of grief. The death of a pack of elephants is typically so traumatic to baby elephants they can never be put back into the wild. They literally suffer from PTSD. To cause the extinction of a species of animal that has no ability to defend itself from a rifle is disgusting. In my personal opinion, if we charge people with war crimes for genocide, it can be seen very similarly.

And to give you more perspective, here is what poaching really looks like. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...oaching-update

[Techno-Druid]

Elephants USED to be an extremely important keystone species in Africa and Asia. Their range is less than 1% of what it used to be and you will almost never find them outside of sanctuaries.

I went to one of those and Thailand and saw the elephants. Each elephant has 1 person assigned to take care of it for life. It's a full time job. The elephants were nice to be around and they were friendly, mostly peaceful creatures. Killing them for ivory is wrong. For meat, probably still wrong since their meat is terrible. I don't wish any harm on them. My main concern is preserving life where possible, that is why I don't think killing poachers is right. It is the same reason why I'm a pacifist and why I don't eat chicken (which cuts down the amounts of animal lives I kill each year by 99%).

Well even with their range drastically reduced, their still an important keystone species. Even ignoring any ecological impact they have, it sucks to see a sentient species go extinct.

[Fang7986]

Should Poachers be shot dead?

So reading this article about a nature park in india it says the rangers have shot and killed at least 20 poachers trying to kill the indian rhino in a year.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-38909512

I believe if its the only way to save these animals from complete extinction then a shoot to kill policy is the only real effective deterrent because lets face it is very difficult to arrest someone in the middle of nowhere and most poachers are armed and will shoot back.

Also why hasnt countrys like vietnam and china done a drive which tells them retards that rhino horn DOES NOT CURE ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION!

dunno bout India but I read somewhere most of the poachers in Africa don't fear getting killed because if they didn't poach they would probably starve to death anyway

[Netherspark]

A disturbing amount of those people were not poachers, but they were shot and killed anyway.

[Deleted]

Well even with their range drastically reduced, their still an important keystone species. Even ignoring any ecological impact they have, it sucks to see a sentient species go extinct.

They are not important. They're too few to make much of a difference.

[Deletedaccount1]

Well even with their range drastically reduced, their still an important keystone species. Even ignoring any ecological impact they have, it sucks to see a sentient species go extinct.

It does but I'm just not sure I'm willing to kill people to prevent it.

[Halyon]

It does but I'm just not sure I'm willing to kill people to prevent it.

You're not killing people. The people who do their jobs have to.

[Techno-Druid]

They are not important. They're too few to make much of a difference.

Considering that we brought przewalski's horse, a species that had 9 surviving individuals left up to about 1,000+ with wild populations in Eastern Europe, China and Mongolia (only growing), we can certainly increase the population of two species numbering in the thousands back up and even expand their ranges as we have with other endangered species.

[Deleted]

Platitudes about the balance of life are nice and all but if you were one of those people in that village, I would imagine that you might not agree with your assessment.

Going off of what you just said, I am just going to assume you would be fine with you and your family dying if a billionaire agreed to give away a lot of money to save the pandas or something on that condition.

No human life is insignificant, "the grand scheme of life" is what an individual experiences and does. It is unique to them. By depriving a person of life you are taking away all the joy and happiness, all the wonderful things that person will ever get to experience and that is an evil thing to do.

A human life is insignificant, no matter how you put it, it's only significant to yourself and people that know you, but on a global scale you are as insignificant and as a dust particle. Humans come and go and you will be forgotten once your generation of people that knew you passes away.

[Deleted]

Considering that we brought przewalski's horse, a species that had 9 surviving individuals left up to about 1,000+ with wild populations in Eastern Europe, China and Mongolia (only growing), we can certainly increase the population of two species numbering in the thousands back up and even expand their ranges as we have with other endangered species.

Do you know how long it takes for elephants to be born?

[Garnier Fructis]

Are you a vegan? Human beings are for one, intelligent and conscience something which most animals are not. You are really going to use a serial killer as an example of a "typical person"?

I'm not a vegan. Because questioning why I should always value human above an animal is not the same as saying that I never value humans above animals.

And I never said Gacy was a typical person, so I have no clue why you put that in quotations unless we're attributing straw-men as actual quotes now. My point is that I don't think the sanctity of human life is coherent as an absolute principle, and I offered up Gacy as an example. But here's the thing: once you allow one exception, clearly the idea that humans are absolutely more valuable goes out the window. In which case I'm perfectly justified in dismissing 'because humans' as a response.

As far as intelligence goes, so what? What it is about intelligence that gives intrinsically more worth?