Elephants were once a common species to see around Africa and Asia, but due to ivory trading elephants have become critically endangered. Every day elephants become more and more endangered and soon they will be extinct. Elephants are killed everyday and used for ivory. Elephants are beautiful creatures and it would be shameful to let them go extinct.
Elephant poaching is a serious problem and is not being stopped. According to the 96 Elephants Foundation, “96 elephants are killed everyday” (“Terror”). At this rate scientists believe “elephants will become extinct in 12 years if poaching continues” (“Terror”). Elephants are poached for their tusks, which consist of ivory. This is illegal, but still happens every day. Elephant …show more content…
Elephants “dig pools of water that many other animals depend on” (“Terror”). They will also “open forest trails and clearings” (“Terror”). This allows other animals to survive because they drink out of the water holes and use those clearings to migrate. Without elephants many other species will die too.
The people who kill elephants are not just poachers many of them have a dangerous background. These poachers are often heavily armed criminals and the “ivory helps fund the military operations of notorious terrorist groups” (“Terror”). This means that elephant poaching is not just pushing elephants out of existence, it is funding these terrorist groups that hurt people. This is just one more reason why poaching is a horrific act.
When poachers hunt elephants, they do not just kill them and leave, they torture them when they take the ivory. These poachers use high tech technology including “helicopters, GPS equipment, night-vision goggles, and automatic weapons to find and mow down elephants, then hack their tusks out with an axe—an atrocity often committed while the animal is still alive” (“Terror”). This would be extremely painful for these elephants and nothing is being done to help these magnificent