Why can’t they just tranquilize the animal and cut off part of the tusks, leaving a foot or so to grow back? Would the elephant die for some reason without tusks anyway? Are they actually that useful?
My guess is (1) they don’t want to take the time (increases the chance of getting caught), trouble, or expense, and (2) the kind of low-lifes who do it don’t give a good damn. Makes you sick, doesn’t it, the many creatures that are destroyed for money.
Well, getting enough tranquilizers to take down an elephant poses a few problems on its own. Not to mention that it can be difficult to predict the effects of tranquilizers. And waiting for them to take effect takes a lot more time than just shooting the damn thing. And that you really don’t want a big bull elephant to wake up while you’re sawing off his teeth. And that poachers really couldn’t care less about the animals’ welfare anyway.
FWIW, park rangers sometimes do just this with rhinos - trank them and remove their horns as protection.
This brings up the question why don’t the rangers do this sell the ivory and put the profits back into the park?
My guess is that the only enemy an elephant can have is another elephant. So they would need tusks.
Also I’ve seen those nature programs and a pack of lions or hyenas can spook out a Rhino with a horn. W/O a horn a rhino would be worthless
Mainly because they don’t want to stop the trade of ivory, not encourage it. (BTW, I didn’t say they do this to elephants, the source of ivory, just rhinos. I don’t know about elephants.) It’s a controversial decision, though.
Perhaps, but these are in protected parks. In some areas, they’re so endangered they have rangers watching over them almost full-time.
Poachers are moving fast and don’t want to take time to tranquilize the elephant. If caught, they face charges from prison to potential death – though going into an African prison for years is potentially a death sentence anyhow.
Poachers have little problems with killing people who discover them.
Removing the tusks creates several problems for a wild elephant. First, the tusks are weapons used mainly among other elephants, secondly, they are tools, used to dig and lever with and third, it is thought that they are symbols of rank within the herd.
Hacking off the tusks and running is not a good thing. The tusks are extended, specialized teeth. They are steadily growing, so if removed, the nerve needs to be killed, the stump sterilized and sealed and there needs to be massive amounts of antibiotics injected to prevent infection until they heal over.
The poacher cares little about that. The poacher is there for profit only. I find it hard, in this modern day and age with such technology and education to find so many people still believing in the ‘mystical’ powers of animal horn, bone and teeth. These people are a fine example of technology out pacing understanding.
To try to stop the slaughter of elephants for their tusks, nations like the US, Canada, England and many others forbid the sale and trade in ‘new’ Ivory. Even antique dealers – as I saw on the Antique Road Show – will not place a value on nor deal with Ivory under 50 years old. However, nations like Japan, China, Vietnam, Korea, India and several others trade in it, mainly for traditional medications and most of those are designed mainly for potency.