Wednesday, October 19, 2016

James Guinther 7

James W.B. Guinther
Mike Lohre
English 1109.01
October 19, 2016


Graydon Carter said, “We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior” (what is). This is important because elephants are almost being taken for granted as their population is plummeting in size drastically. The value of Ivory is about 700 U.S. dollars per pound, and as countries across the globe are banning the sale of ivory and cracking down on the murder of ivory bearing animals the price is being pushed through the roof. This is very important to notice because, although the ban is with good intentions in the end it is just driving the demand for ivory up and killing off the what's left of the elephants.
When thinking about the ivory trade elephants are often times the first animal to come to mind but in reality the ivory trade is killing many other animals too. Rhinoviruses are also being butchered for their prickles horns at 65,000 per 2.2 pounds making it worth more in weight than gold or diamonds (what is). Hippopotamus can't even escape the deadly target their precious tusks have become, putting them on a poacher's hit list as well. Animals are being hunted to extinction in order to harvest their ivory, leaving their corpses behind to cover Africa. A new approach must be taken in order to stop this mass genocide and save these poor creatures.




Works Cited
What is ivory and why does it belong on elephants? (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2016

                     Ending the ivory trade. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2016, from http://www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/elephants/ending-ivory-trade

5 comments:

  1. It was very interesting reading your post and how you going into specific details.

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  2. I liked the choice of picture used to show what they actually do to remove the ivory

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  3. I liked the choice of picture used to show what they actually do to remove the ivory

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  4. I enjoy learning about the ivory trade in this post.

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  5. the picture you had was my favorite and i was wondering how heavy is a full elephants tusks

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