5 Animals That Are Endangered for the Sake of Stupid Products
Animals on earth are becoming extinct at an alarming rate, something that’s highly unfortunate, but far from inexplicable. You’d have to have lead-lined blinders on to think that we’re having an impact on this planet that keeps other species around. Some, though, aren’t just the victims of changing climate or deforestation, but actual, targeted hunting. When you’re on the brink of knocking off a type of animal for the rest of time and the thing on the other end is a luxury chess piece? That feels especially bad.
Here are five animals endangered because of simple dumb consumption…
Elephants
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Probably the first animal you think of when poaching is mentioned — and for unpleasantly accurate reasons. The material making up elephants’ two longest teeth has long been irresistible to humans. In days of antiquity, when it might have been genuinely difficult to find a durable, pearly white material for your goods or fake teeth? Still gross, but certainly more understandable than today, when there’s a million materials, natural and synthetic, that can make for a luxurious stack of bracelets. In particular, almost 90 percent of African forest elephants have been wiped out in the past three decades, with ivory poaching a significant contributor to that percentage.
Tigers
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Tigers are a beloved animal for the cool factor alone. There’s a reason they’ve got a stranglehold on a secondary habitat: the back of embroidered satin jackets. With that in mind, you’d think we’d give a shit about keeping them around for subsequent generations, but nope. Apparently, the possibility of wearing or displaying their signature pelts or pursuing wholly unsubstantiated “medicine” outweighs the possibility of their existence whatsoever.
According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, every year since 2000, parts making up at least 150 tigers have been seized by authorities. This is just what they’re catching, mind you, with probably an equal if not larger amount evading law enforcement’s eyes. And sure, three-digit numbers might not seem devastating, but when you realize that there’s only about 5,500 tigers in the world, period? That’s a pretty big chunk.
Rhinos
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Another well-known poaching target is the rhinoceros, an animal unlucky enough to have its premier product on display in the middle of its face. Rhino horns have been a prized bit of both the luxury goods and homeopathic medicine spheres for a long time, and given that each rhino doesn’t produce a lot of horn, it’s decimated their population. Whole animals are killed for products as insignificant and laughably cruel as rhino-horn hangover cures.
You want to talk about endangered? How’s this for endangered? When it comes to the northern white rhino, there are literally two left. That's the actual minimum for a species not to be extinct. Those two rhinos are guarded around the clock, because even when humans know that the two animals they’re looking at are the last ones on earth, apparently they’re still perfectly happy to kill them for a profit.
Pangolins
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Pangolins are delightful little freaks. They definitely don’t have the name recognition of the tiger or the white rhino, with the Pokemon they inspired probably ranking higher on a global recognition scale. Even if you’re aware of them, you might, like me, not have realized they’re endangered — a surprise that will quickly switch to anger when you find out that poaching is a large contributor to their decline. In fact, pangolins are the most trafficked mammal on the planet.
Part of this is due to ease of poaching. Not that pangolins are defenseless — they’ve developed pretty awesome defensive measures, just ones that don’t hold up to modern humans. They roll into balls and are protected by their sharp scales, but dextrous, horrible humans are happy to simply pick them up and toss them in bags. Their scales and leather are valuable, with the latter being a material in high-end, illegal cowboy boots. Making pangolin cowboy boots possibly the biggest bit of asshole footwear I can imagine, straight out of Mr. Burns' famous musical number.
African Grey Parrots
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The unique thing about the trade threatening the African Grey parrot population is that the prized product in question is the parrots themselves. They’re a highly desirable exotic pet, and that drives their trade. If you’re a real surface-level type of thinker, you might wonder, “Wouldn’t having people wanting them as pets help keep them around?” First of all, I’m hugely envious of your blissful brain. Secondly, sure, if the trade to get them there didn't involve horrific trapping tactics and the majority of them dying in transit, all only to be likely delivered to someone with no idea of how or interest in properly caring for them.
Given that birds are a pet particularly known for screaming, I can’t imagine anyone without a sadistic side genuinely wanting to own one.