Bear Wants Brownies

In literature the cute bears Paddington and Winnie the Pooh are always on the lookout for marmalade and honey, respectively. Neither one is rude or capable of doing harm to anyone. The harshest thing that Paddington will do to you if you get on his nerves is give you a hard stare. But in real life bears are not small, cute and cuddly. They don't ask politely for what they want. And what they want apparently isn't marmalade but brownies. A woman in Connecticut was baking brownies when one of the local fauna apparently caught the scent of the chocolate goodness and decided it wanted some.  AVON, CT (WFSB) -
Avon residents called police after a bear tried to get into a home this weekend and one neighbor got the whole incident on camera. Neighbors talking to 911 dispatch stated that the bear was trying to gain access into a home on Stagecoach Road. "My neighbor across the street just came over in a panic. She's a little old lady, screaming that a bear got on the back porch and is slamming on her glass door," one call to 911 stated. Members of Department of Energy and Environmental Protection were called to the scene. They said a bear "spent considerable time on a deck and was reluctant to leave." This incident was especially terrifying for the female homeowner who was baking brownies as the bear pressed up against her glass door.

Family Abandons Dog For Dumb Reason

Depending on what sort of dog you purchase or adopt you are looking at taking care of another living being for anywhere from six to sixteen years, give or take. The dog didn't make the decision to come live with you. You did. So why in the world would you break a commitment to an animal that if it's known for anything at all is known for its unbreakable loyalty? That stinks. But the world is full of callous people who can't be bothered to do proper research on what sort of pet they want or even if they are pet people in the first place. Fortunately in this instance it appears that the dog in this story wound up better off. Certainly that is no thanks to its previous family.  People should think things through more carefully before they decide to have a pet live with them. Pets aren't toys to be casually discarded when you lose interest. On Monday, Desi Lara, a shelter volunteer at the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control Downey, posted a video that will absolutely destroy you. It shows a 2-year-old German Shepherd named Zuzu, who was picked up by Animal Control after getting loose and hopping the fence into her neighbor's yard. When her family arrived at the shelter shortly after, Zuzu got super excited, thinking they had come to take her home. "With her fast wagging tail seeing her owners Zuzu lit up like a Christmas Tree," Lara wrote in the caption. "She looked like the happiest dog."
But her happiness was short-lived, when she realized that they weren't there for her. They were there to get another dog. Apparently, Zuzu had become too much of a downer since her father passed away. "Their reason was because she was crying and sad since her father passed away. She wasn't a happy dog anymore," Lara wrote. "Their solutions for her unhappiness was just leaving her here! And go get another dog."

On Tuesday night, the Downey Animal Care Center announced that Zuzu had been taken in by a rescue organization, and will be leaving Downey on Friday, which is the first day that she is legally allowed to be adopted.

What a Friend we have in Dog

On the weekends I run many different errands. Over the past weekend I stopped at the vet to retrieve some medicine and specialty food for my German Shepherd. While I sat in the reception room waiting for my order to be fulfilled, I noticed that there was another gentleman there with his dog. His dog was a male 14 year-old Beagle. That is positively ancient for just about any dog. This Beagle was completely blind. He had suffered some sort of disease that required his eyes to be removed. The medicine (or maybe it was just the age and stress of surgery) had also caused his fur to turn completely white. Nevertheless despite his advanced age and blindness the beagle was still lively, running around to sniff everything. Obviously this was a bit problematic because he would often bump into things or me. This is probably why his owner had the Beagle wrapped in a thick doggy-sweater in order to minimize bruising. Talking to the owner I could see that he had a lot of love for his dog. He described changes that he and his family had made to their daily routine, two story house and yard in order to ensure that their dog could go about his daily affairs with a minimum of discomfort. The man's face shone with love for his pet. I thought this was interesting because in the old days for many people dogs were more utilitarian than they are today. Down south my grandfather had Beagles which he used to assist him in hunting. I don't think people forty or fifty years ago would have been willing to spend thousands or even hundreds of dollars on extreme health measures for an old dog. People probably would have done a quick cost-benefit analysis which placed high emphasis on the costs and not so much on the benefit to the dog. Obviously veterinary science has improved since the sixties but even so we view our pets differently than we used to do. This man was willing to spend no small amount of money on surgeries and medicine to save his dog's life and ensure that his dog would be as comfortable as possible in the short time that remained to it. I think that is a good thing.

Although we may view our pets more favorably than we used to it seems as if police officers are more frequently looking for reasons to shoot and kill our pets. There is a continuous stream of stories about police officers shooting dogs on private property regardless of whether the officer is in danger of being bitten or not. I think too many police officers get off not just on killing animals but from the pure power rush of messing with people. Society needs to do a better job of screening people who apply for any job where the worker can exercise legal or physical power over other citizens. The Hupp family called the police to their property to deal with a dispute with a neighbor. Apparently the police officer doesn't like dogs. Tiffanie Hupp ran to stand in front of a police officer who was on the verge of casually shooting her family's chained dog, after the dog ran towards the police officer. The police officer attacked and arrested Mrs. Hupp. She was charged with obstruction of justice. She went to trial after refusing a plea deal. The officer lied and claimed that Mrs. Hupp menaced him with a crossbow, something which the video clearly shows was not the case. Fortunately Mrs. Hupp was acquitted of the false charges. Even more fortuitously she wasn't shot. It should be clear to most rational people by this time that there is a culture of bullying and sadism that occurs in too many police departments. I suppose what you think of Mrs. Hupp's actions depend at least in part on what you think of dogs. I don't think that volunteering to sacrifice your life for that of your dog is a particularly smart move but neither could I stand by and watch some preening thug with a badge kill my dog just because he felt like it. Something would have to be done right then and there. The fact that the officer was going to shoot Mrs Hupp's dog and tried to confiscate anything which could have been used to record his actions shows once again that too many cops use their badge not to serve the public but to bully it. The fact that Mrs. Hupp was willing to risk her life to save her dog and prevent her children from seeing the dog killed shows once again how much people love their dogs.

A West Virginia woman who stood between her dog and a cop who was about to shoot it was acquitted by a jury of obstruction charges on February, 29th, 2016. West Virginia state trooper Seth Cook testified that he was not afraid of the dog, but was following training that required him to kill all dogs that approach him, even if it was chained and wagging its tail as Buddy was doing in this case. 

And because Tiffanie Hupp tried to stop him from doing so, she was arrested...
Cook had just talked to her neighbor’s and had stepped onto her family’s property when Buddy began barking and approaching the officer, reaching the end of its chain.That’s when Hupp’s husband, Ryan Hupp, 25, began recording.
“If it wasn’t for him recording, there’d be nothing,” Hupp said.“He knew about police brutaty before I did. But that’s why the camera is shaking, because of the adrenaline. When they read those words ‘not guilty’, we were relieved. It’s hard to describe the feeling unless it’s actually happening to you. Justice is good, though.”

As Buddy approached and began barking at Cook, he pulled out his gun on the dog. And that’s when Hupp stood between the two.

Why Some People Don't Deserve A Dog

I ran across this article the other day. My husband and I did the unthinkable: We returned our 5-month-old puppy to her breeder despite the fact that our family loved her and thought she was adorable. I work from home most days and thought that would make housetraining easier, but I soon realized it made it harder because there was no set schedule or routine for Eevee. Some days she wouldn’t go in the crate at all. Other days she would be in the crate for three to four hours. At a six-week training course, we were told to put Eevee in the crate several hours a day even when I was home. I would lure her into the crate with treats and pretend to go out, but Eevee was smart enough to sense I was still home. She would bark and whine until I let her out again. I soon realized that Eevee wasn’t Lambic, and much like children, no two dogs are alike. Plus, my husband and I were used to an older dog that knew our family’s patterns and rhythms and didn’t need the constant attention and discipline of a 2-year-old child.The hardest part about the entire situation was telling our daughter. She had promised to help take care of Eevee, and for the most part, she did. But as much as she was willing to walk the puppy and play with her, it wasn’t enough, and it didn’t ease our stress. People like this sadden me. The whole point of having a dog is that dogs are companion animals. Most of them thrive on human contact and love. If you get a good dog and treat it well you will have a friend for life, tragically short as its life will be compared to yours. A dog is not a toy to be put away in the closet or discarded when you lose interest in it. These people should be well known by every breeder and animal shelter out there so that no one ever again makes the mistake of sending another dog home with them. It is true that sharing your space with a puppy who will eventually turn into a dog can be challenging. 

Many dogs shed or smell bad. They lack table manners. They may act up around strangers. They have to go to the bathroom constantly, and do not care where they relieve themselves. Depending on what's going on they may continually bark or whine. Heck, even if nothing is going on they may continually bark or whine. It is expensive and time consuming to ensure they have proper medical care, shelter, food, entertainment, and dental care. But if you're an adult you know all this already. It's up to you to train your dog so that its behavior falls into socially acceptable patterns. A dog is a dog. It is not and never will be a furry little human. Expecting that is stupid. But if you're willing to put in work, as obviously these yahoos were not, then in most instances you can have a rewarding and fun relationship with a very social animal who by nature tends to be willing to please. Getting a dog is a big decision and not one which should be lightly taken. Selfish lazy people should never have dogs. Hopefully the dog is not too damaged from the mistreatment it received and can find a new home with people who actually know what to expect from our canine friends. After all, the dog didn't ask to be there. Generally speaking, a dog is just a mirror to what sort of person you really are. And if you are the sort of person who can't handle the "horrible stress" of having a puppy act like a puppy do yourself and your potential puppy a huge favor and get a less stressful and more affectionate and expressive animal like a goldfish. But be careful. You do have to change the goldfish's water from time to time.
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Cute Animals, Neoteny and Rights

The other day while I was finishing watching Season 8 of Supernatural, I noticed that my dog suddenly seemed very interested in something on the carpet. Well unlike Robb Stark, I make a point of paying attention to what my direwolf is trying to tell me. For someone with a pretty small brain the dog notices more than you might think. I halted the DVD and went to see what the dog was watching. It turned out to be a rather large spider. So I moved the dog away from it. Now usually I would have just killed the spider. But having read the recent special Time magazine issue on animals and how we think of them I decided against that. I retrieved some paper towels. I carefully picked up the spider and dropped it outside. Would I extend such mercy to a housefly? Doubtful. I'm not familiar with the exact details of the different habitats, hygiene and dietary habits of spiders and flies. However, when I see a fly I immediately think disease, dirt, filth and nastiness. A fly vomits on its food before eating it, eats fecal material, and most importantly looks disgusting to me. A spider also appears alien but does not immediately and automatically bring up to me all the images of decay and filth that a fly does. So it was easier for me to save the spider. Any fly that enters my house is going to be almost immediately swatted or chemically poisoned. Is that fair or logical? Probably not.

The Time issue pointed out some things that have intrigued me. People walk or drive down the streets in their neighborhood or their local university central campus and see squirrels running all over the place, jumping from tree to tree, roof to roof, playing, frolicking, hiding food or digging for food and occasionally making a nuisance of themselves. Few people are bothered by this. Many people think it's cute, especially in the fall. Some people will even put out food for squirrels or try to convince squirrels to approach them for food. But if you replace "squirrel" in the above sentence with "rat" most Americans would be physically disgusted. Nobody in their right mind puts out food for rats. And if you saw rats routinely running across the street or jumping from your neighbor's roof to yours you'd probably soon be looking for a new place to live, provided you had the resources to make it happen. Why is this? They're both rodents. Why do we have disgust for one simply because it has smaller eyes, lacks a furry tail and has more prominent or even frightening looking teeth? Why does the squirrel get such good PR when in some aspects it's just a furry tailed rat? Why do the words "dirty" and "rat" almost always go together as an insult? Does anyone call informers "squirrels"?

In part the answer is something called neoteny. We tend to be hardwired to respond positively to juvenile characteristics. Things like large eyes, big heads, and weak chins (at least in our own species and most mammals) may cause us to think of the possessor as "cute" or "young" and/or trigger protective responses. Creatures that retain some of these characteristics to adulthood might be more successful living with humans. This certainly seems to have been the case with dogs. When a creature lacks these things, is non-mammalian or has other characteristics that override any "positive" traits (like for example a long nasty looking rat tail) we might have trouble extending empathy and sympathy. As pointed out in the Time issue, Michael Vick horrified people not only by investing in and attending dog fight events but also by electrocuting, hanging or otherwise killing dogs that had lost too often, were old, or were considered bad investments. If Vick had invested in or invented some new rat poison product which killed 10000 times as many rats as dogs, few people outside of PETA would have noticed or cared. He would not have gone to prison or have become a target of disgust and protest. I understand that but to be fair I also have to admit that these feelings are logically incoherent. Presumably the rat who ate poison and died from internal bleeding, organ failure, suffocation or heart attacks wanted to live just as badly as the dog that was electrocuted, shot or hanged. It just happens to be the rat's misfortune that it has a face only another rat could love. So the other part of the equation could just be "speciesism" for lack of a better word. The more something resembles us, the more likely we are to extend empathy to it. Insects and arachnids are just out of luck, looking incredibly different than humans in particular and mammals in general. Few will describe them as cute or cuddly at any stage of their existence.

These things are hardwired in humans but they are also very much culturally based. The picture of the rats drinking milk comes from Rajasthan, India where apparently the rat has some sort of religious status. And there are several present day cultures across the world where the dog is considered food for consumption as much as it is considered a pet. I find these things incredibly disgusting and even immoral but that's my own cultural bias isn't it. Perhaps some day we (Americans) will look at the routine killing of animals we currently consider vermin to be morally challenged behavior. I don't know. So although human existence in and of itself means that some animals will die it might be wise to at least examine your actions where you have a choice. If you can avoid killing an animal when you don't have to isn't that a good thing? 

Thoughts?

Cane Corso Dogs Kill Livonia Jogger

I have a dog. She's a German Shepherd. She's about average size for a female German Shepherd, weighing in at around 72lbs or so, but she is still extremely aggressive, protective and selfish of what she thinks of as her territory and pack. She's big enough to make unwanted solicitors go away which is fine by me. It's highly unlikely she is anywhere near as dangerous as she thinks she is. But she still has a high prey drive and loves to chase smaller creatures. She becomes agitated when someone she does not know approaches me or other humans she's accepted as part of her pack. And though my dog is smart for a dog, the smartest dog is still downright dumb compared to a human. So, with all that said I never ever ever let my dog run free off leash outside of my fenced backyard. And since she's figured out how to open the gate, I still have to keep an eye on her if she's in the back yard. The world is full of dangers, whether it be other dogs, trigger happy police or other armed people "standing their ground", cars, kids, etc. For both my dog's safety and my own it's best if she's on the leash and I do all the thinking for both of us. Because otherwise if she's off leash and trying to figure out the world on her own, each of us could get into a lot of trouble. A dog, even a midsize animal like a Shepherd, can under certain circumstances be quite dangerous. Responsible dog owners know this and take steps to ensure everyone's safety. But irresponsible dog owners don't take the proper steps to do that, whether it be training, control of the animal, or even better making sure that they have the correct animal for their needs. This is what happened in Michigan recently.

You don't have to be licensed to purchase any sort of dog. You can be a responsible management consultant who keeps his dog on leash and obeys the relevant laws and codes. Or you can be an illegal immigrant couple who let their dogs run free off leash throughout the neighborhood scaring people, biting them and finally killing a person. Mr. Qualgiata and Mrs. Lucaj are now facing second degree murder charges because their two Cane Corso dogs killed a Livonia jogger while he was jogging past their home.

The Metamora couple whose dogs killed a jogger last week are in the U.S. illegally and were facing imminent deportation at the time of the attack. Valbona Lucaj, 44, got into the country from Albania in January 1997 after bribing an immigration officer into granting her asylum, according to federal court filings. Her Italian husband, Sebastiano Quagliata, 45, arrived a month earlier as a tourist and never left. The two are potentially facing involuntary manslaughter charges after their Cane Corso dogs attacked and killed Craig Sytsma, 46, of Livonia on July 23 as he jogged past their home on a rural Metamora Township road. Lapeer County prosecutors are expected to announce a decision on criminal charges this week. It is unclear what, if any impact, their citizenship status will have on possible prosecution. The couple have been fighting deportation for years since immigration officials discovered that Lucaj had paid $3,000 to an immigration officer in New York to grant her asylum. That asylum was then granted to Quagliata because he was her spouse. LINK

Now there is plenty of blame to go around. If the federal government had been doing its job in a prompt and efficient manner these two lowlifes would have been kicked out of my country a long time ago. But also if the local and state agencies, ie. the prosecutors, had been doing their job the dogs would have been seized and destroyed and/or the couple would have been arrested before this final tragedy took place. I am actually less concerned with their immigration status than with a pattern of behavior that shows the couple simply didn't care what their dogs did. This fatal mauling was not the first time that the dogs had attacked humans. And in the neighborhood the couple was apparently well known for letting their dogs run free. If you don't give a dog something to do and a sense that you are the one in charge, the dog will make up its own job. And it may even start to think that it is in charge. This is a horrible thing to have happen. And with an animal which possesses the size and aggression of a Cane Corso it's akin to leaving a loaded gun out around a child.  LINK

I don't jog as much as I used to because of knee issues. But I still go for pretty long walks with my dog in the subdivision or the woods/farmland which are behind it. Dogs being dogs there is plenty of barking and raised hackles when we encounter other dogs. But there's only been two occasions in the decade or so that I've had my dog that we've been attacked by other dogs. In one of those cases the other dog stopped short and ran when my dog went into full beast mode. In the other incident I applied my boot to a place on the other dog's anatomy where I thought it would do the most good. I had words with the owner in the second situation and did indeed file a complaint with the authorities. But neither of those two dogs which attacked us were Cane Corsos. If you are unarmed and are attacked by such animals there's not going to be too much that you can do. You are going to get bit. You may not survive. 

So although I have a gooey soft heart for animals in general and canids in particular it's critical that the Cane Corsos involved in this attack be destroyed. It's not their fault but all the same they have demonstrated that they are too dangerous to be allowed to live. The behavior patterns they've shown prove that they will continue to harass and attack passers-by. And as far as the owners, I think that second-degree murder charges are exactly the appropriate charges. If found guilty they could get up to life in prison. I am not at all bothered by that. I just wish that everyone, local, state and federal, had paid more attention to the situation before it reached this point. Having a dog is a responsibility. You must be in control of the animal at all times. If you can't do that and/or are deep down scared of the dog then don't get it.

Thoughts?

Is 2nd degree murder the correct charge here?

Is there a problem with off leash dogs in your community?

Atrocity in Africa: Children murdered in front of mother!!!!

There is nothing a mother will not do for her infant but even she cannot protect it from bullets. About a year ago, killers attacked a family in central Africa. The surviving witness of the attack told us that the family's guards were completely outgunned. In the end, the mother, riddled with bullets and crying with pain and fear, was left to use her body to shield her baby. Her sacrifice was for naught; the baby was also killed. 
The above is from an article that I will link just below. Unfortunately this atrocity didn't get the media attention that it deserved in no small part because it's become too common in Central Africa. I was outraged and angered beyond belief when I read about it. Murdering a mother and her baby is beyond foul wouldn't you say. The kinds of people who would do such a thing need to be hunted down and either imprisoned for a long period of time or slowly and painfully permanently removed from the planet so that anyone else who would even think of committing such a crime can look at the corpses of those who did carry out this crime and hopefully take the proper and intended object lesson.

I mean how can you just shoot down a mother and her child. Where is your humanity? Why weren't the killers apprehended and tried in court? This needs to be stopped ASAP. I feel every strongly about such things. Don't you? You probably do feel that way having read what I just laid out. Most moral or normal people would. No one or at least no one who's not cartoonishly EVIL likes to read about the killings of a mother and her baby. That link between mother and child is fundamental to mammalian existence. 

But there's a twist here that may change your thoughts. What if I told you that the mother and child who were each murdered were not in fact human but rather elephants? And they were killed not to feed people or because they had threatened or killed humans but because some humans halfway around the world had a sick desire to use ivory for casual trinkets or displays of wealth. Would you say so what and click on another post? Would you think that the death of intelligent animals was worth this? Because I don't. I don't think it's worth it at all. And I think it must be halted. By what right do we kill an animal for fun? Is that something we ought to be doing? Do you think God gave you this right? Does God look kindly on the slaughter and sexual mutilation of creatures He created?

There is nothing a mother elephant will not do for her infant, but even she cannot protect it from bullets. About a year ago, poachers attacked a family of forest elephants in central Africa. The biologist who witnessed the attack told us that wildlife guards were completely outgunned. In the end, an elephant mother, riddled with bullets and trumpeting with pain and fear, was left to use her enormous body to shield her baby. Her sacrifice was for naught; the baby was also killed.

Such is the reality facing African forest elephants today.This mother and child were just two of the tens of thousands of forest elephants that have been butchered over the past decade. A staggering 62 percent vanished from central Africa between 2002 and 2011, according to a study we have just published with 60 other scientists in the journal PLoS One. It was the largest such study ever conducted in the central African forests, where elephants are being poached out of existence for their ivory.

In China and other countries in the Far East, there has been an astronomical rise in the demand for ivory trinkets that, no matter how exquisitely made, have no essential utility whatsoever. An elephant’s tusks have become bling for consumers who have no idea or simply don’t care that it was obtained by inflicting terror, horrendous pain and death on thinking, feeling, self-aware beings.

One of us recently came face to face with this horror while walking through a forest in central Africa. The sickening stench provided the first warning. As the smell grew more pungent, the humming sound of death that surrounds the body of a dead elephant became more pronounced: thousands of buzzing flies, laying eggs and feeding on the corpse. The body was grotesquely cloaked by white, writhing fly maggots; the belly was swollen with the gas of decay. The elephant’s face was a bloody mess, its tusks hacked out with an ax — an atrocity that is often committed while the animal is alive.

LINK

Now I'm from Michigan. Hunting season is huge here. Growing up I spent my summers down South, where hunting was also a cherished pastime. So I understand it. But I don't like it. I've never had interest in shooting something helpless. I take no joy in snuffing out a life. And there is a HUGE moral difference between killing an animal for your own survival or food, or because it's become numerically excessive and killing an animal strictly for fun, killing an animal which is intelligent enough to grieve and killing an animal which is already endangered and flirting with extinction. I think it's savage and immoral beyond words to murder an animal simply so you can have ivory jewelry. I am not a PETA member. But PETA isn't wrong on everything. You don't need to make deliberately offensive comparisons to slavery or the Holocaust to recognize that morally something is deeply wrong when humans kill rare animals for knick knacks. 

Although I do not like hunting and think it often morally problematic, deer in Michigan are a renewable resource. Deer are not being hunted to extinction. There is a department of natural resources which theoretically attempts to manage the deer population and identify and arrest poachers. When stray dogs and cats are taken into shelters and eventually euthanized I'd rather not think about that animal's last moments. But neither dogs nor cats are in danger of extermination. What the Africans and Asians are doing to the elephant species and for that matter the rhino population is something different in both intent and scale. The continuing existence of these species, among others, is at risk. 

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus.

I think Agent Smith was on to something. It is is increasingly difficult for 7 billion humans to live in balance with other life forms. What is the moral reason that we have for making distinctions between humans and animals? I'm no longer sure there is one. Perhaps if someone were hunting the poachers and their customers, they might understand that killing living creatures for fun isn't really a nice thing to do.

China, similarly to the US and maybe even more so, has some very ugly cultural traits. These were tolerable perhaps when China was poor and limited in its impact. But with China's increasing wealth and power there will be more conflict between China and everyone else over the world's natural resources and various flora and fauna. Just like with carbon emissions, the world may not be able to survive an unhinged and unchecked Chinese demand for natural resources. China has a lot to answer for and must play a more responsible role in future resource utilization. We can not  remove China as a player no matter how much that might help save the elephants so we must find a way to  force China, help China to alter its behavior, even as we change our own.

You would think that since in historical terms, African nations have only recently thrown off the chains of centuries long European resource exploitation via colonialism and imperialism, African nations would be a bit more wary of entering into more or less the same relationship with China. Unfortunately this isn't always the case.

In 30 years of fighting poachers, Paul Onyango had never seen anything like this. Twenty-two dead elephants, including several very young ones, clumped together on the open savanna, many killed by a single bullet to the top of the head.

Some of Africa’s most notorious armed groups, including the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Shabab and Darfur’s janjaweed, are hunting down elephants and using the tusks to buy weapons and sustain their mayhem. Organized crime syndicates are linking up with them to move the ivory around the world, exploiting turbulent states, porous borders and corrupt officials from sub-Saharan Africa to China, law enforcement officials say. 

But it is not just outlaws cashing in. Members of some of the African armies that the American government trains and supports with millions of taxpayer dollars — like the Ugandan military, the Congolese Army and newly independent South Sudan’s military — have been implicated in poaching elephants and dealing in ivory. Congolese soldiers are often arrested for it. South Sudanese forces frequently battle wildlife rangers. 

The vast majority of the illegal ivory — experts say as much as 70 percent — is flowing to China, and though the Chinese have coveted ivory for centuries, never before have so many of them been able to afford it. China’s economic boom has created a vast middle class, pushing the price of ivory to a stratospheric $1,000 per pound on the streets of Beijing. 

High-ranking officers in the People’s Liberation Army have a fondness for ivory trinkets as gifts. Chinese online forums offer a thriving, and essentially unregulated, market for ivory chopsticks, bookmarks, rings, cups and combs, along with helpful tips on how to smuggle them (wrap the ivory in tinfoil, says one Web site, to throw off X-ray machines).Last year, more than 150 Chinese citizens were arrested across Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, for smuggling ivory. And there is growing evidence that poaching increases in elephant-rich areas where Chinese construction workers are building roads. 

“China is the epicenter of demand,” said Robert Hormats, a senior State Department official. “Without the demand from China, this would all but dry up.”He said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who condemned conflict minerals from Congo a few years ago, was pushing the ivory issue with the Chinese “at the highest levels” and that she was “going to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to address this, in a very bold way.” Foreigners have been decimating African elephants for generations. “White gold” was one of the primary reasons King Leopold II of Belgium turned Congo into his own personal fief in the late 19th century, leading to the brutal excesses of the upriver ivory stations thinly fictionalized in Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness” and planting the seeds for Congo’s free fall today. Ivory Coast got its name from the teeming elephant herds that used to frolic in its forests. Today, after decades of carnage, there is almost no ivory left...

LINK
Now why does this matter? It matters because elephants are rare, intelligent animals. Killing them for trinkets is profoundly morally depraved and filthy. It also matters because removing elephants from the ecosystem may have unforeseen effects. Fewer or extinct elephants means fewer forests means higher carbon emissions means greater climate change. And when that occurs some of the same nations engaged in or underwriting this slaughter will be making pious UN speeches blaming the US for climate change and begging demanding more money. It matters because we simply cannot stand by and allow an atavistic Chinese and East Asian desire for ivory wipe out an entire species. And finally it matters because the violence and corruption endemic in poaching inevitably and literally bleeds out into African societies. How can you have a lawful or peaceful society when well armed criminal organizations or corrupt armies and police feel free to ignore the law and kill those who try to uphold it? How can Africa grow and thrive if it continues to serve primarily if not solely as a natural resource provider to The West and increasingly to China? 

It can't. It won't.

For short term profit, Africans will slaughter the wild animals that live in their countries. Three decades from now when the animals are all gone those countries will probably still be impoverished. If you're interested in getting more information and learning what you can do to help combat this disgusting slaughter please visit these sites.
http://www.cites.org/
http://www.bloodyivory.org/stop-the-ivory-trade
http://www.stoprhinopoaching.com/register.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/06/ivory-poaching-sanctions-cites?CMP=twt_gu