Elephants

People find lots of ways to entertain themselves. One might go to the movies or dine with friends. Some even go into the wild to enjoy nature. They enjoy seeing wildlife, trees, plants, streams and sneaking up on the animals to see them in their natural habitat. However, there are some people who enjoy sneaking up on the animals so they can kill them. Some people kill for food, and some kill for sport. Killing for sport is understood when it controls a population such as white tail deer in North Carolina. Then there are some people who go after rare animals such as elephants. They go into the wild and kill the elephants either for the thrill or for the tusk and then leave the rest where it lays. These people think of this as an acceptable form of entertainment.

The picture selected is set in a plain in southern Africa. There is tall grass all around except for an area that has been cleared so that you are able to have a good view of a huge elephant that is lying down; his legs are slightly bent as if he had been running. His head is thrown back as far as it will go as if he was trying to endure severe pain. The elephant has full grown tusk and his trunk is curled. The elephant is dead. There is a man kneeling in front of the elephant who is either a hunter or a poacher, but he is deffinatly the killer. He is holding a large gun and he has this smile on his face. He is so proud of his kill. It is apparent that he has not killed this elephant out of necessity.

This picture came from an internet advertisement for a safari hunting trip where you go into a southern African jungle to hunt an African elephant. They set up the safari trips guaranteeing that you will see an elephant and have a chance to hunt and kill it.

The elephant population in the world is steadily going down. Elephants are considered endangered, however, there are not that many laws preventing the killing of the elephants. There are laws protecting poaching of these animals. Poaching is when elephants are killed only for there tusk, then the tusk are removed and the elephants are left. The regulations are more on the export of the ivory than killing the animals. Therefore, it is not illegal to kill an elephant. "The number of Asian elephants in Vietnam has declined from about 1000 in 1990 to fewer than 100 in 2002." (Hammatt)