• Fuck poachers, don’t get me wrong, but fucking hell, I wish people had the same kind of energy when it came to billionaires, who are literally responsible for the deaths of millions of humans (by virtue of hoarding so many resources as well as creating and maintaining a system that relies on exploitation and suffering to benefit them and only them).

    If only society cared about oppressed and marginalised people as much as it does about cute animals.

      • Society doesn’t care about cure or endangered animals

        That’s bullshit.
        I’d agree that not enough people care, but significantly more people care about cute endangered animals than they do marginalised and oppressed human beings.

        It doesn’t take a study to see the difference in attitudes and engagement (though studies have been done, feel free to invest your own time looking them up).

        The fact that you’ve responded to me to focus on the animals but not on the people my comment is actually about is a perfect illustration of my point.

        • The fact that you’ve responded to me to focus on the animals but not on the people my comment is actually about is a perfect illustration of my point.

          That’s all a narrative you created in your head. Besides, many of the same solutions that would protect endangered species would also protect marginalized people. You’re trying to make this into a Trolley Dilemmas for some reason. Who do you think are the ones buying dick powder made form Rhino horns?

  • I did not expect so many upvoted poacher sympathizers in this thread. I am disappointed.

    Poachers aren’t poor. They make assloads of money off their illegitimate trade. They have plenty of skills that could be put to profitable use elsewhere. They simply choose poaching because it is more profitable.

  •  Durk   ( @Durk@beehaw.org ) 
    link
    fedilink
    3810 months ago

    I mean, this is not really a solution. Poachers don’t do what they do because they’re greedy and hate animals, they do it because they’re poor and have often no other choice but to risk their lives to make a living, and they are probably getting something like 10$ per rhino horn. This is a systematic problem perpetually reinforced by the actual people we should be shooting: the millionaires who hire the poachers. They are the ones destroying the environment, exploiting animals and people and reselling those same rhino horns for ridiculous amounts of money on the black market.

    • Then they should be stealing from the rich. Not killing endangered species.

      And at ~ $20000 USD/kg for African and ~400000 USD/kg for Asian, and them not taking the meat. Its definitely for profit and not survival.

    • Poachers don’t do what they do because they’re greedy and hate animals, they do it because they’re poor and have often no other choice but to risk their lives to make a living,

      Well, they’re risking their lives, they’re losing them in the gamble. No one owes you winning a gamble.

      This is a systematic problem perpetually reinforced by the actual people we should be shooting: the millionaires who hire the poachers

      Not saying we don’t, I’m all in for shooting a millionaire myself; but that doesn’t detract from still needing to kill the poachers: we can’t leave the reservoires and wild habitats unguarded merely to kill one or two twitter twats, so the job of millionaire killer we have to give to someone else.

    • we should be shooting: the millionaires who hire the poachers

      Damn, I was looking forward to eating them. :(

      But you’re entirely right. Obviously the poachers do the hunting, but there are people rich enough out there that put a price on rhinos to begin with, they are the real problem. They wouldn’t be hunted if there was no incentive.

    • Nah, we of the working class and impoverished are partly responsible for the situation we’re in, because we’re too busy playing the system instead of fighting back like we were supposed to be doing. The result is this: people wiping out popular and beloved species just to get crumbs from their masters. How disgusting.

    • ridiculous amounts of money on the black market

      Exactly. These aren’t impoverished farmers doing what’s necessary to live in some semblance of comfort. They’re greedy SOBs who don’t give a rip about anything other than riches. They don’t deserve sympathy.

  •  froghorse   ( @froghorse@lemm.ee ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1510 months ago

    Maybe if they had a system where people weren’t so damn broke then dangerous work like poaching rhinos wouldn’t be so attractive.

    That would be a better way.

    I mean, these guys are doing this to pay their bills because they see no better options.

  • It is important to note here how well-indoctrinated the US and Europe are to “point the finger” and absolve responsibility…

    We don’t refer to stuff as “deforestation,” we call it “urban planning” or “development.”
    We don’t talk about “poaching,” we just accept that farmers and the agriculture industry finds natural predators inconvenient, so we allow them to kill off coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, etc.

    We have just as many people doing similar, but for some reason we’re only taught to lose our minds over conservation elsewhere, in the places where the US intentionally destabilizes (with Europe) to keep prices low for us. After all, it’s what our economies are built upon: ruin everywhere, so we can call ourselves the heroes for killing off indigenous folks to areas just for the crime of living and wanting things to feel fair.

    Check yourself. This isn’t “the way”

    • Well, that’s naive and misinformed. And also irrelevant; endangered species are too important to the environment for poor people to justify killing them off to buy food. Poor people have agency and therefore responsibility for their actions too. Your stance is both anti-environment and anti-working class.

      We can and should help the poor in ways that don’t involve absolving them of responsibility for driving endangered species extinct.

      • Well articulated. We can’t absolve people of responsibility just because they are poor, unless we absolve them of all responsibity and treat them like children, and put the ones who have no caregivers in a foster care system. I’m fairly certain nobody wants that.

        Yes, I am aware poverty is not something you can just wish away, but they know what they’re doing. Same as the people illegally cutting down forests in Eastern Europe. They’re also poor but they’re also assholes. They also have a penchant for shooting people who try to stop them. Pretty sure them rhino poachers would do bad stuff to anybody getting in their way as well.

  • Eco-fascists unite, huh?

    How long do any of you idiots upvoting this think it’ll be until these (so-called) “rangers” start selling rhino horn themselves? That is… if they haven’t already and this is really just them clearing out the competition?

      • No. You are. This meme demonstrates how easily first-worlders will slavishly applaud fascist terrorism in the third-world as long as you wrap it up in green capitalism first.

        The only thing these privatised death-squads you call “rangers” are doing is waging unrestricted warfare on impoverished brown people while (at best) doing absolutely nothing to hinder the mass-slaughter of wild life or (at worst) simply monopolizing it for their own profit - but you get your “eco-friendly” revenge-porn in exchange, so everything’s cool, right?

        • I actually don’t disagree with your general point, but the idea (and the fact that your fist thought was) that the rangers will turn around and start poaching rhinos themselves seems like a really odd argument to be making if your aim is the capitalists who create and uphold the industry in the first place.

          E: like, you focusing on the rangers is exactly the same as other people focusing on the poachers - neither are in charge and both are there making money for people who would never get their hands dirty.

          • that the rangers will turn around and start poaching rhinos themselves

            None of this is difficult to understand - it’s no different than the right-wing death squads the US trained to fight their little “War On Drugs” suddenly and not-so-mysteriously ending up the biggest players in the drug-smuggling business.

            Who did you think these “rangers” work for? They are pigs - that’s what they are. And like all pigs, profiting from the illegal things they are (supposedly) “preventing” is merely one of the unspoken but universal perks of the job. As long as their violence serves the capitalists that wants to exclusively loot and pillage natural resources, everybody in power will turn a blind eye. And it’s not just the trade in animal parts - don’t be surprised when it’s discovered that these privatized goon squads being lauded in the media for their (supposed) “anti-poaching” activities take their orders from multi-national mining corporations or companies that want to exploit local populations as cheap labor.