Why poaching

Wildlife crime is a huge business, lead by dangerous international illicit organizations, wildlife are trafficked like illegal drugs and weapons. It is very difficult to obtain reliable figures for the value of this illegal traffic. Experts estimate that it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. To tackle poaching is essential to give a strong international response. Starting from local communities in Africa to fight poachers, till the European metropolis to stop trade and sellers.

In many African parks rangers patrol the territory to protect the wildlife and the environment. However, they often do not have enough means to control these wide territories and to discourage poachers. In many African countries, rangers die after armed conflict with poachers. Except natural causes, as illness or water scarcity periods, elephants are killed by poachers. Often they killed the mothers for the tusks and leave baby elephants in the bush alone.

Those babies cannot survive without the mother: they die after few days attacked by predators, for hunger, thirst or other natural reasons.

The only chance is to be found by a rescue center, in these cases the baby elephant is raised by the vets and when possible is brought back in a herd. Read more about poaching and wildlife crime at National Geographic's Wildlife Watch. See all of National Geographic's videos about poaching here.

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