Annotated Bibliography On Animal Poaching - 3376 Words

Jorge Ramirez Professor Andrew Franz Esq. CJL 4115 April 15, 2015 Elephant Poaching When one imagines what elephants are like in the wild, they imagine giant animals roaming the land eating plenty of food and drinking plenty of water. The average person may not know, or understand, that there are people that practice the illegal killing of elephants, or poaching, in order to obtain and then sell or trade that ivory for whatever is valuable to the poacher. Poaching is illegal because it has led to the significant decline in the elephant population in recent years and can very well lead to severe endangerment or worse, extinction. Elephants are more than just animals that graze on the land, but they are animals that can spread the seeds of the plants they eat. Elephants roam a large area of land, and therefore, spread seeds via their dung. This is great for plants that have no ways of transportation, except for falling next to their parent plant. Along with the vast spreading of seeds, â€Å"the seeds that are in elephant stomachs are softened, whic h means the seeds are able to germinate faster than seeds that have not been softened†(Scientificamerican). Due to this there must be lots of plants that have been dependent on elephants because of co-evolution. The poaching of elephants is an issue that must be looked into not only because of reasons stated above, but also because the extinction of a certain species can only cause a domino effect of cataclysms. The matter of poaching