Poaching is a terrible thing. Why? There are many reasons!

Sadly, poaching has been going on since the 16th century. Many animals have gone extinct just in the last 100 years! It’s all because of poaching.

Poaching is an illegal version of hunting. People will kill animals just for one part of them such as horns or teeth. A lot of countries believe they can be used for medicine, but many studies have shown that that is false. Poaching causes animals to be endangered and on the verge of extinction. There are 1000’s of animals that are incredibly endangered and their population is having a hard time to grow. This is why poaching is bad to the animals.

Poaching also affects the balance. Just a few years ago a certain type of wolf was poached almost to extinction, causing its prey to jump up a lot! The deer it hunted started eating a lot of one tree and that tree almost became extinct as well. This is also an affect of poaching, it messes up the food-chain.

Poaching does not only harm animals. But, it does harm humans as well. The way it harms people is not as big of a deal but does cause some problems in small but well known towns. If animals are going endangered then some towns and cities won’t make as much money from tourists. This is how it harms some people.

Now that you know what poaching is here are some animals that have been effected. In 2016, last year, 30,000 elephants were killed. Experts have shown that if this goes on elephants will be extinct in the next decade. Just a few years ago the black rhino went extinct completely. Also, many more animals like river dolphins, island tortoise, monk seals, Mexican grizzly bear, and finally the Javan tiger.