Elephant and Rhino Horn trade

[RichardY]

Was watching a programme on Sky News a UK MSM channel about the Ivory trade. Seems crazy to me that there's armed guards for the last Rhino of it species, and a big pile of Elephant tusks worth £100 million to buyers. There always seems to be an article every year about the trade with usually one of the Royal Family "raising awareness". 

 

Why isn't there farming of Elephants and Rhinos? The locals could eat Elephant steaks or Rhino burgers and sell the horns and meat to go towards improving living standards and the species wouldn't die out. I remember somewhere that rhino horn was more expensive than Gold. 

[Wuzzums]

Technically speaking dogs and cats have perfectly digestible meat, humans too. I think the answer to your question has to do with our prejudices and not logistics.

[Libertus]

> Why isn't there farming of Elephants and Rhinos?

 

Because the government has made it illegal to do so.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Black government playing the victim card - how unpredictable! I'm sure the 1st world will eat it up. Burn your wealth, say your solutions are your problems, manufacture a villain, and watch the 1st world rush in with foreign aid and funding. Man, black people must think white people are really stupid.

 

Edit: Sorry, I meant to say some black people, specifically those in the governments

[Mister Mister]

That's a good question.  The answer is probably because there is a stigma against this sort of thing.  In the case of lion hunting, the money that rich thrill-seeking Westerners will pay to be able to shoot male lions (which is helpful for population control, as male lions will kill the cubs of other prides), is very helpful to many African governments, and has incentivized them to maintain lion populations, and by corollary their environments.  So, while shooting lions may be offensive to many environmentalists, it's actually been great for environmental preservation.  The same could be true of elephants and rhinos potentially, if the well-wishers would keep their nose out of things they don't understand.

[Jer]

> Why isn't there farming of Elephants and Rhinos?

 

Because the government has made it illegal to do so.

That's how we saved the American Buffalo from being endangered, dropped the laws against raising and eating them.

[RichardY]

Remembered an article I read sometime ago about the American Bison https://mises.org/library/endangered-species-private-property-and-american-bison Just 23 Buffalo in Yellowstone Park in 1902.

 

I wonder how much money some people working in "conservation charities" are making and I'm not talking about some scientists or even people that pay to feed the Rhinos or hug a Lion cub. I guess its mostly about playing on a more emotional level, colourful photographs, a crying animal. What about some of the Rangers trying to defend the herds or not from poachers? I'd imagine their not going to have a great time when perhaps a dozen other guys come for the Ivory. A huge waste seeing all that steak going to the flies, the only reason I could think of perhaps banning the trade would be to argue that Elephants are capable of morality and therefore killing them would be murder? If so to what extent of evolution maybe even IQ would this be the case? (Could be opening a can of worms there).

 

Going a bit off track but whale hunting and the fur trade also come to mind.

[Ama-Gi]

Maybe they should have taken a hint from the DEA. Destroying some supply doesn't change anything. The demand for ivory goes unchanged, the price will rise, which will incentivize more poaching. Perhaps they should have slowly sold their 100 million pounds of ivory undercutting the poachers.