this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Poverty hardly justifies crime. It is a cause not a justification. They are still poachers doing illegal hunting for protected animal on protected land. Also poaching is rather lucrative, even if the government raises income 200% poaching will still stand out.
Yes, no matter how rich you are, sleeping under a bridge is illegal and immoral ! Shoot on sight !
Holy shit, a false equivalency from the left. About as rare as a shiny Mew yet here we are
yeah no if I can feed my starving family by killing some animal I would take that in a heartbeat. In contrast, if I can work in a factory and make enough to live decently I'm not going into the woods to try and kill something that can kill me back and risking getting into trouble with the law. Have fun in perfect actor land where you live though.
They can choose to hunt deer or I don't know monkey to feed their family or even steal food. All justified. Poaching is extremely lucrative. Its like saying I'm robbing my sixth bank because I'm poor. They are not eating the rhino. I'm not OK with gunning these people but it is a shit act even if you are poor
Like yeah it's a bad thing to do, but I can see why someone might do it once to try and set their family up. Yes they should be stopped and punished, but should we personally hold them in contempt? There's definitely better off people involved with it, fuck them, and fuck the shit heads who are making the market.
One side is hunting animals.
The other is murdering humans.
Even beginning to equivocate this is insane.
Poacher spotted. 🎯
Murder freak
This is the way.
Oh, are you fantasizing about murdering me right now?
You’re an eco fascist.
You know humans are animals… right?
Do you really think the poachers surrounded by wild animals that can kill them and ‘animal loving’ deaths squads are living lavishly and eating lobster and steak dinners?
This is all relative. Their paychecks are nothing compared to what people have in the west, they are not eating lobster. Its like you get 1 usd a day for manual labor or 100 usd for a single rhino shot. So the difference is multiple fold. They know what are they getting into. It's like someone asks you to sell coke. You know you will get easy money and you know the risks as well.
Poverty does justify crimes. When you need to eat, killing a rhino not so bad.
I hate this mentality where poverty crimes are evil but any rich guy destroying the lives of millions of people through financial schemes or to make a better profit are considered almost like good guys. This is completely fucked up.
So if they are poor and eradicating a species off the face of the planet, then they should get a pass? They have the equipment and skills to hunt non-endangered animals which would provide food for themselves and their family. Excess meat could likely be traded or sold. Poaching is not a crime of necessity.
What if we shoot the wealthy people buying the horns instead? Wouldn't that be better? I think so.
It's like fighting drugs by arresting the last guy in the chain selling the stuff in the street.
But it's always easier to blame and punish the poor guy at the end of the food chain.
You are using 2 different analogies that contradict each other. The poachers are cultivating a product, similar to poppy and coca plants, not the street dealers, and the wealthy are the buyers / "users".
The problem is that under Indian law, hunting non-endangered species such as deer and rabbit is just as illegal (most of the time).
And if they were hunting non-endangered species for food, then I would be outraged by a lethal response, but that's not the case here.
My point is that the forest laws and forest departments in India are set up to criminalise tribals whatever they do. Most of the rules date to the British era, when the government wanted to protect game animals from the tribals and farmers. So when tribals, who have been hunting boar and other common animals for thousands of years, are suddenly told that hunting for food is a crime, they have no option but to break the rules. Now they have a choice - keep hunting boar and deer every week and risk arrest each time, or kill a rhino and get enough money to last a few years. If we could relax the laws on hunting common species, I expect to see rhino poaching go down automatically. Some Indian states have more liberal hunting laws (for tribals) than others, and in those places you do see reductions in human-animal conflict.
If you don't want to take my word for this, or would like to read more, I would suggest the last two sections of An Ecological History of India by Prof. Madhav Gadgil and Ram Guha.
I am happy to take your word for most of it, but it does not change my view. I am completely in favor of identifying and taking steps to remediate the underlining cause of all forms of crime rather than simply punishing violators. That being said, the hubris that an individual, or group of individuals supercedes the survival of an entire species is repugnant to me. I have no sympathy for anybody that actively contributes to the the extinction of another species (except mosquitos).
The one point of your argument that I do question is the "kill a rhino and get enough money to last a few years" claim. While I have not looked into the details in India, as I understand it, poachers in Africa can make roughly the equivalent of an average 1 month salary for killing 1 rhino. If, in India, they make enough money to last a few years than either poachers are almost exclusively first timers, which seems highly unlikely to me, or they are doing it for greed rather than survival, which would negate your argument of the restrictive hunting laws.
There is a broad spectrum of crimes, from stealing an apple to mass murder other people. When you decide to steal food from the supermarket to feed your family it is justified. Hunting... I don't know... deer or hogs is justified so they can feed their family. But picking a very lucrative business and say you are doing it coz of poverty is kinda fucked. Just for clarity: I'm not agreeing with gunning these people down.
No, stealing is justified. Not wiping out endangered species. Morality is complex and there is nuance in this discussion.
Hunting is perfectly normal and has been a key to human survival since the dawn of man. It's suddenly immoral because some capitalist country said so?
Rethink what crime is.
There's a bit of a difference between hunting a gazelle for its meat and another for poaching an endangered rhino for its horn.
Because otherwise rich people won't get to see them on safari.
No animal life is inherently more valuable than one another. The concept is absurd and so full of contradictions.
I'm not about to cheer the violent murder of a human being to preserve a fucking safari.
Nah fuck humans. The worst animals of them all. I wont advocate violence but I wont shed a tear over a dead poacher nor rich horn buyers. Humans can just make more humans, with ease. Rhinos aint never called me bad names. Im im the Rhinos corner.
Yes, the gazelle can feed your family for a week, the rhino horn can feed them for a year.
Dead poacher doesn't need food.
Eco fascist drivel.
You’ll be cheering when they start killing climate refugees in a couple decades
“Crossing the border is illegal!!!”