Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
~Albert Einstein
Oh problem! I'm not going to talk about a style of cooking, instead I'd like to give my two-cents worth on a serious threat that the world is facing.
What is poaching?
Poaching is the illegal hunting or killing of wild animals and plants without the necessary permits or documents. Personally, this is one of the biggest problems in the world. Wild animals and plants play essential roles in maintaining the ecological balance of forests and seas. Animals are poached for human consumption, medicinal purposes, for collection and even use its body parts as accessories. This illegal activity has been around for thousands of years! It looks like every country has its own battle to combat this dilemma.
A few months ago, the local authorities in my country had captured and seized a foreign vessel full of dead sea turtles, sharks, sting-rays and other marine creatures. It was reported that those animals will be transported to another country and will be sold as an exotic food or aphrodisiac. As a nature lover, I found this news quite disturbing. The Pawikan (Philippine Marine Turtle) is the local term of sea turtle which is endemic in the country. You can check more information here.
I learned in one of the episodes of NatGeo on TV that sharks' fins and meat have high content of mercury that could be hazardous to our health. Have you tasted the shark-fin soup? It's one of the most expensive soups in the globe! On the other hand, there are scientific studies that some viruses like Ebola and MERS-CoV (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome - Corona Virus) were first acquired by wild animals and then later transferred to humans because of poaching. Both viruses have killed many people in Africa and in the Middle East. That raised an international concern and fear to public especially to the medical professionals who devoted their time and knowledge to cure the infected patients. If the poachers had learned the effects of their action at an early stage, they would have prevented the spread of the virus to the community.
Poverty is the one of the root causes of poaching. If the government could provide different livelihood programs to the family of poachers, it would limit the abuse of wildlife animals. The government should also enforce a stricter laws to lessen those illegal activities and other forms of abuse to endangered species. We can support legit, non-profit agencies and institutions that protect the welfare of the natural resources and its inhabitants through volunteering and information dissemination with the use of social medias. More importantly, we must refrain ourselves in patronizing all products that came from illegal activities.
If we share and propagate the ways to help mother nature, and the people for their noble cause, then we can at least make a huge step. Or better yet, let us be the first one to act against those unlawful doings. Everyone can make a difference!
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Comments
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Sir Bob! I completely understood your concern to animals. It's totally frustrating and sickening to learn or see the brutal killings of wild animals on TV. There are plenty of documentaries that aired on National Geographic channel and even on Animal Planet about those illegal activities particularly to elephants, rhinoceros and sea turtles. How I wish all those poachers would be enlightened with their awful doings before it's gonna be too late.
I wish too that there could be more groups and organizations that deal with illegal hunting or killings such as Greenpeace and Whale Watchers!
Thanks again for your worthy comment, Teacher Bob! Take care. :)
Thank you Bro Raj for taking the time to comment on my blog! I hope things are working well with you! :)
Thank you Doc for leaving your comment and for featuring this blog! I truly appreciate it! :)
Thank you for the compliment, Teacher Tara! I love everything about nature and its captivating beauty. That's the reason I chose this topic, so I could present the argument why poaching is one of the biggest problems in the world. I have already corrected the typo in the quote. I added it to this blog for effect up to the last minute without realizing it has an error. I understand that I should've proofread it as well before I hit the publish blog button! I appreciate your reminder so much. Thanks again! :)
Excellent writing, Robbie. You made some really important points and wrote a convincing argument about why this is such a major world problem. I'm very impressed with your use of vocabulary, too!
Challenge: Can you spot a typo in the quote you used? It's a common mistake that most people won't even notice. :)
Beautiful thought, bro!
Robbie, this is a subject dear to my heart. I love the wild animals and remember how sad I used to be when I found where someone had killed an elephant and cut off the face to take the tusks. It is one of the few things that gves me violent feelings and it would be very bad if I ever found a poacher while i was holding a gun. I don't feel sorry for those people but agree that they may be converted if they can be educated.
Most of them are not killing for meat but for large amounts of money and could easily farm or do other things to feed their families. Somehow governments must step up and teach the people how the wild animals benefit them, starting with the children. Secondly poachers must not get off lightly when they are found. The punishment should be something that would set an example to others and discourage the activity.
In other words, encourage good activity and strongly discourage poaching. Poachers are the worst kind of criminal to me. Also the businesses that deatroy animal habitat are close to poaching on the scale of evil.
Nice work, Robbie.
Yes, they are doing it for money or profit. And it's also true that they may not do it anymore if we don't buy that.