
The WWF Funds Guards Who Have Tortured and Killed People - vector_spaces
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomwarren/wwf-world-wide-fund-nature-parks-torture-death
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andrepd
This to me is a sign of a kind of twisted morality and twisted priorities that
urban, well-off people have in regards to animal rights. In a nutshell, it is
the humanisation of the animals and the dehumanisation of humans. I can't help
but to feel profoundly annoyed and even horrified when I hear people proudly
proclaiming how people that people who hunt rhinos ought to be shot on sight,
waged war on, why even tortured and summarily executed. Meanwhile people
starve in miserable conditions, conditions which in many cases serve to push
them into risky jobs such as this. They don't really care that that person is
desperate with little other way to feed his family, and that poaching groups
pay him 2 years wages to kill an animal and bring the ivory to them, they are
happy to decree capital punishment for that from their comfy chairs. But boy
they do care about some misplaced sense of "wildlife protection" with regards
to appealing species like pandas or African megafauna.

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dsajames
Poachers are mostly criminal gangs, not mothers feeding dying babies. This
shows a profound lack of awareness of the area. It's not some massive group of
half starving people.

Also when you are dealing with the extinction of a species, drastic measures
are necessary. Are you saying you prefer the economic well being of every
single person on Earth over the right of a species to exist?

That is indeed twisted morality.

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kkarakk
newsflash- poaching is lucrative enough for people to not listen when you tell
them to please stop killing the animals(they'll even shoot at you if you
irritate them enough). it is essentially a war between economically and
ethically motivated people.

buzzfeed: [surprised pikachu face] for clicks as usual

~~~
jdietrich
It's a war between economically and economically motivated people.

The majority of critically endangered species are amphibians. Around 30% of
all amphibians are classified as critically endangered, endangered or
vulnerable by the IUCN. Why have you never heard this fact before? Because
practically no-one actually gives a shit about conservation.

The major conservation charities are a boondoggle. Their work often has little
or no basis in science, their priorities are completely disconnected with
protecting biodiversity, they often work to "save" species that are under no
real threat and their efforts to protect charismatic megafauna are often
detrimental to broader conservation issues.

As highlighted by this article, the impact of their activities on native
peoples ranges from "highly disruptive" to "grievous and persistent abuses of
human rights". In many places, the activities of conservation charities
resembles the British Raj; vast numbers of people are uprooted from their
homes and displaced to make room for wildlife reserves, despite those people
often playing a vital role in protecting the ecosystem they inhabit.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1502366541/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1502366541/)

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duado
The public does love its megafauna. I desperately want my son to be able to
take his son to see cheetahs on a safari. As for frogs... I can’t make myself
care even 1% as much.

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AnIdiotOnTheNet
Much like the poachers then, the value of the animal is based solely on its
utility to you personally.

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duado
Yep — so I’ll support policies to shoot them on sight and perhaps they’ll do
the reverse.

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notacoward
So, serious question: is the libertarian position that trade in endangered-
animal products should be unregulated, or that anti-poaching efforts should be
so? Or, perhaps, both? To me that seems awfully close to "might makes right"
but I'm still curious to hear the rationale.

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ForHackernews
I'm not a libertarian, but some have suggested large scale farming of
endangered animals to meet demand for these products and put poachers out of
business.

Honestly, I'm uncomfortable with the notion of a tiger farm or a rhino farm,
but it's hard for me to say exactly why.

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basementcat
Why not have large scale farming of humans to meet demands for inexpensive
labor and protect against the occasional genocide?

~~~
yellowapple
Pretty sure that's called "urbanization".

