Six tons of illegal ivory to be crushed

[Enigma]

Or simply find a more effective method in catching poachers.

That's easier said than done.

Replace "ivory poacher" with "drug producer" and you kind of get an idea of how hard it could be to solve the problem with law enforcement. It must be easier to protect the animals than it is to chase criminals.

Can't both be done at the same time? Very strict laws against poaching. No 3 strikes. Hire more guards to patrol areas where elephants are. Confiscate anything the poachers have on them. As mentioned, drone aircraft.

Stuff like that? Just throwing ideas out. Offer incentives to the governments to actually give a damn about protecting their animals?

[Lagmonster]

Replace "ivory poacher" with "drug producer" and you kind of get an idea of how hard it could be to solve the problem with law enforcement. It must be easier to protect the animals than it is to chase criminals.

Can't both be done at the same time? Very strict laws against poaching. No 3 strikes. Hire more guards to patrol areas where elephants are. Confiscate anything the poachers have on them. As mentioned, drone aircraft.

I don't know much about the war on drugs, but I'd assume that if we could get foreign governments to effectively use military force to stop those criminals, the US would probably have done it already. And the drug barons may well have large-acre production infrastructure. Not nearly as hard to find as a group of men on the move, in hundreds of miles of wilderness, in a poor or politically weak country.

As for using US drones to murder any human that gets too close to the animals, I'd wager that we've already learned that that would be a startlingly bad idea (and here I am thinking of the past decade of Taliban hunting in the wilds of Afghanistan).

[Enigma]

Not using the drones to kill but as surveillance. Using it identify poachers and then hunt them down and arrest them.

Again, offer those governments incentives (Cash, equipment, blah de blah). Add some pressure. But why do I get the feeling that the U.S. doesn't give a damn about prevention of elephant slaughter and concentrates more catching those smuggling ivory.

[Lolpah]

I don't know much about the war on drugs, but I'd assume that if we could get foreign governments to effectively use military force to stop those criminals, the US would probably have done it already.

Actually they did, with the Mexican Drug War. Didn't turn out too well, with massives increases in violence and criminal acts.

[Straha]

So their proposal to help the fight against ivory is to increase the scarcity and therefore price of ivory products even further? I can forsee some problems with this. People who hunt ivory already know it's illegal, as do people who buy it. The reason it's worth producing and purchasing anyway is that it is so rare.

Can we not simply farm elephants, which would solve the problem of scarcity both of elephants and of ivory? And since it would be legal, it would be easy to mandate humane slaughter, as in production of meat.

...

I was going to ask if you're trolling but I think that's probably an asked-and-answered question. So, a more serious question: What would it take to prove to you that it would be ethically wrong to murder an elephant and to 'farm' an elephant?

[salm]

Apparently some countries have good results with allowing big game hunting. If your game is a resource you can sell to rich foreigners you can afford to pay people who will watch over your resources and scare of the poachers. If you don´t hunt faster than the reproduction rate you will have enough animals to conserve, hunt and sell to create new flocks else where.

Hunting elephants was banned in Kenya in the 1970s and poaching since then has skyrocketed. Very few elephants are left now and they are considering making elephant hunting legal again because countries like South Africa and Namibia have been successful conserving elephants that way. They´ve been doing this since the late 1800s.

In a country where corruption is rampant and governments have little money it is not surprising that a private organization following lucrative financial interests can be more successful than the government.

So, as stupid as trophy hunting is it appears that it actually helps the hunted species.

[madd0ct0r]

So their proposal to help the fight against ivory is to increase the scarcity and therefore price of ivory products even further? I can forsee some problems with this. People who hunt ivory already know it's illegal, as do people who buy it. The reason it's worth producing and purchasing anyway is that it is so rare.

Can we not simply farm elephants, which would solve the problem of scarcity both of elephants and of ivory? And since it would be legal, it would be easy to mandate humane slaughter, as in production of meat.

...

I was going to ask if you're trolling but I think that's probably an asked-and-answered question. So, a more serious question: What would it take to prove to you that it would be ethically wrong to murder an elephant and to 'farm' an elephant?

Do you eat bacon?

[Straha]

Do you eat bacon?

No. Vegan for three or four years now.

[Thanas]

Also, since when is an elephant equivalent to a farm animal?

[GuppyShark]

Since they are both intelligent creatures that feel pain and emotion?

What we consider a 'farm animal' has no moral foundation and certainly isn't based on any objective assessment of a species intellect. It's just utility and custom.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Why not try reading the thread? Elephants are sentient animals; they communicate, socialize (there is an observed difference between elephants that grew up in a herd, those that grew up alone, and those in a zoo), grieve their dead etc. They're way more fucking intelligent than as-yet-uncooked ham. That's why people react like that to the suggestion we simply farm elephants.

[Lagmonster]

Also, since when is an elephant equivalent to a farm animal?

You're the history buff; I seem to recall that there's a solid history of elephants as porters, labourers, and war engines. That's a solid argument to be made that elephants fall into the category of 'farm animals', similar to horses, oxen, and dogs, which all have both service and product uses to humans which we should take advantage of responsibly and humanely.

[AniThyng]

Why not try reading the thread? Elephants are sentient animals; they communicate, socialize (there is an observed difference between elephants that grew up in a herd, those that grew up alone, and those in a zoo), grieve their dead etc. They're way more fucking intelligent than as-yet-uncooked ham. That's why people react like that to the suggestion we simply farm elephants.

I thought Pigs were supposed to be pretty intelligent themselves, on the level of dogs even. Is this really a sound argument?

[Lagmonster]

As an interest point, there's a good argument to be made for either the humane stewardship or the culling of older elephants as a rule, since they supposedly commonly starve to death in the wild, after their last teeth fall out.

[madd0ct0r]

Do you eat bacon?

No. Vegan for three or four years now.

fair enough. hypocrite argument withdrawn

[ray245]

Also, since when is an elephant equivalent to a farm animal?

You're the history buff; I seem to recall that there's a solid history of elephants as porters, labourers, and war engines. That's a solid argument to be made that elephants fall into the category of 'farm animals', similar to horses, oxen, and dogs, which all have both service and product uses to humans which we should take advantage of responsibly and humanely.

But we do not domesticated them in the same manner as horses, ox and dogs. Even in places where elephants continued to play a huge role up until today, such as SE Asia, they are not domesticated.

[Lagmonster]

Vegan for three or four years now.

Fair enough. hypocrite argument withdrawn

You could stretch it (to no good purposes, really) by pointing out that Vegans profit from the slaughter of pigs, so long as his peers (ie. the people who provide him all the other comforts of civilization) themselves consume animal products en masse. People who want to abstain from consuming animals or animal products only really get to satisfy themselves to the limits of their own four walls, but everything at the peripheries of their world is drenched in perpetual sin. That's not meant as a jab at or criticism of the lifestyle so much as an acknowledgement that it's a tough standard to carry.

[Thanas]

Also, since when is an elephant equivalent to a farm animal?

You're the history buff; I seem to recall that there's a solid history of elephants as porters, labourers, and war engines. That's a solid argument to be made that elephants fall into the category of 'farm animals', similar to horses, oxen, and dogs, which all have both service and product uses to humans which we should take advantage of responsibly and humanely.

Are you seriously saying an elephant is the same as a pig or a cow, aka species we engineered for over thousands of years to suit our needs and which in their present form cannot survive in the wild without us? Really?

[Kitsune]

As an interest point, there's a good argument to be made for either the humane stewardship or the culling of older elephants as a rule, since they supposedly commonly starve to death in the wild, after their last teeth fall out.

If the elephants lived in a first world nation, we might be able to do this

[salm]

In 3rd world nations they do that by selling the right to shoot old elephants to hunters.

[Lagmonster]

Are you seriously saying an elephant is the same as a pig or a cow, aka species we engineered for over thousands of years to suit our needs and which in their present form cannot survive in the wild without us? Really?

Well, I think drawing the line directly under only the most familiar, highly developed examples sets the goalposts too narrowly. Elephants have 4,000 years of continuous domestic human service, and I'd say that qualifies them under the umbrella of animals considered to be managed by human agricultural enterprise, although if you pressed me I'd have to admit that they're at the extreme low end of the scale.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Also, the idea that pigs are unable to live outside of domestication is kind of disproven by the fact that domesticated pigs turned feral can become invasive species.

Edit: This is more for the idea that pig slaughter farming may need to be rethought rather than the idea that elephant slaughter farming is a good idea

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Why not try reading the thread? Elephants are sentient animals; they communicate, socialize (there is an observed difference between elephants that grew up in a herd, those that grew up alone, and those in a zoo), grieve their dead etc. They're way more fucking intelligent than as-yet-uncooked ham. That's why people react like that to the suggestion we simply farm elephants.

I thought Pigs were supposed to be pretty intelligent themselves, on the level of dogs even. Is this really a sound argument?

Yes it is. You can start from here. Even if we grant that pigs are as intelligent as dogs (and I don't have reason to doubt it), elephants are way above that.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, since when is an elephant equivalent to a farm animal?

You're the history buff; I seem to recall that there's a solid history of elephants as porters, labourers, and war engines.

Of course, those are also capacities in which the same societies would have cheerfully employed human beings, if human beings were ten feet tall and weighed five or six tons.

And personally, I think raising elephants as laborers is ethical as long as the elephants are treated humanely- until we can figure out how to communicate clearly enough with them that one of them can sign contracts, it at least gives them a defined role in our society that makes it less likely that our renegades will kill the last of them out of hand. Arguably, labor elephants are "farm animals."

But I find it very wrong and disturbing to raise them for slaughter, because of their great intelligence. Also very stupid and impractical, because about the only herbivore on the planet that might be harder to raise in captivity would be the rhinoceros.

[Thanas]

Well, I think drawing the line directly under only the most familiar, highly developed examples sets the goalposts too narrowly. Elephants have 4,000 years of continuous domestic human service, and I'd say that qualifies them under the umbrella of animals considered to be managed by human agricultural enterprise, although if you pressed me I'd have to admit that they're at the extreme low end of the scale.

And I think only the highly developed examples fit the bill here as they are the only ones we slaughter for their bodily products.

Also, the idea that pigs are unable to live outside of domestication is kind of disproven by the fact that domesticated pigs turned feral can become invasive species.

Edit: This is more for the idea that pig slaughter farming may need to be rethought rather than the idea that elephant slaughter farming is a good idea

Cows can't survive without humans though, so the point still stands.