Poaching is the illegal hunting, killing, or capturing of animals. Poaching is a world wide crisis. It literally kills thousands of animals each month. Animals become endangered every day, some even become extinct. The people to blame are called poachers. These are the people responsible for the deaths of these animals. Some governments are helping to put these people in jail.

Bears are one of the most endangered animals in the world. They are the most endangered in North America. The poachers lure in the bears by spreading trash on the ground. The bears go in and start to eat the trash. Once the bears are in the trees, occupied with trash, they sneak up and shoot them with a pistol.

The poachers use many different types of traps to kill or trap their "prizes". The worst is probably the Pitfall or the snare wire. Pitfalls are these large holes that the poachers dig and put horns or sticks at the bottom. Anything sharp is put at the bottom. They cover it up with leaves and chase the animal with dogs and spears. The animal falls and breaks bones on impact and can't move. This allows the poachers to run up to the animals and stab them repeatedly. A snare wire is like a noose that the poachers tie to a tree. They chase the animal towards the trap and its neck gets caught. The more and more it struggles, the tighter it gets around its neck.

There are many places that poaching is bad but there are three that you want to avoid. South Africa is the absolute worst. They kill many rhinos every day. Texas is next. The reason is that we have big game ranches that have zebras to antalopes. These are then trained to not be afraid of anything. The ranch holder goes out there and shoots the animals. After Texas it's on to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is home to many elephants and giraffes. They are killed with high-velocity rifles.

Poaching is not just on land. Sharks like this Bull Shark get killed everyday on the African and Asian Gulf Coast for their fins. Their jaws are cut out for trophies and their skin is used for rubber. Since the skin of a shark is smooth on one stroke and sharp on another, it makes perfect rubber for wet suits. Since bull sharks are carnivores, their diet includes fish, other sharks, rays, dolphins, turtles, birds, molluscs, echinoderms, and crustaceans, making people scared of them. A persons first reaction is to fight the shark and kill it. This usually happens and then they make money off of it.

The most poached animal by far would have to be the Western Gorilla like this one. There are only a couple thousand of them on earth most of which are in zoos or wildlife refugees. A wildlife refugee is somewhere that protected animals are sent and taken care of. Both species of gorilla are endangered, and have been subject to intense poaching for a long time. Threats to gorilla survival include habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade. In 2004 a population of several hundred gorillas in the Odzala National Park, Republic of Congo was essentially wiped out by the Ebola virus. A 2006 study published in Science concluded that more than 5,000 gorillas may have died in recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus in central Africa. Conservation efforts include the Great Ape Survival Project, a partnership between the United Nations Environment Program and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and also an international treaty. The Gorilla Agreement is the first legally binding instrument exclusively targeting Gorilla conservation and came into effect on June 1, 2008.

Canada has one of the cruelist versions of poaching. They have something called the Canadian Seal Hunt. They walk up to the baby seals and penguins and hit them with sticks or clubs, breaking the animals back. They cut off their fur and leave the seal to rott. They kill the penguins for their blubber.

These are only some of the animals that poaching takes a death toll on every day. If we act now, we may be able to save some of these animals from extinction.

Luke N.