Dear readers, 'I hit a wall'... that's my lousy excuse for not writing for the past five weeks. Forgive me? Maybe i shall redeem myself once i write this article today. :) So i stumbled upon some news...not good news actually. A huge smuggling operation came to a stop just 10 days ago in Bangkok when they seized 739 tusks worth $6 million dollars en route to Laos. Now i don't know about you, but the value of the money does nothing for me... you see when i hear 739 tusks, i hear 739 adult elephants dead!!! Does that do anything for you? Does it make you want to scream? Does it make you want to hit a wall? (that's my attempt at my own joke). Anyway, does it make you question humanity? Does it make you wonder why they do it?
These are just some of the questions i ask myself at times when i hear such terrible news. I even come short of asking the old adage question, 'why do bad things happen to 'good people' or in this case 'innocent animals'. I use the term innocent lightly because unlike humans, these animals may not seem as innocent but we must remember we are the reason they are 'cruel' or termed 'dangerous'. Smuggling is an art...yes you heard right, an art. Now when you imagine art you may think of a painting right? Well, that's a very small way of looking at it. Art according to Wikipedia (this is the best definition of the word I've come across) means 'a diverse range of human activities and the product of those activities usually involving imaginative or technical skill'. Now there's that word 'skill' and i think you might be getting the picture right? Because first of all, the activities include transporting the tusks, the skill involves carrying out the transportation and the product is the illegal trading of the tusks. I don't know about you but that seems like work that requires lots of skill.
Let's imagine for a minute the chain of command here from the beginning (PS: this does not in any way uphold their actions). So, an organized gang hires poachers to go out to the wild and well..poach these animals, the poachers then link up with the smugglers to transport the goods to the final destination. Let's say that this operation succeeds all through, which process do you think was the hardest and thus required greater skill? I am most certain that the smuggling bit of this operation is the hardest as it contains numerous risks and if am not being speculative is partly the reason the tusks cost so much. However, this is not important. It doesn't matter at what angle we look at it; smuggling is only a part, albeit an 'important' one, of a heinous act that destroys the lives of thousands of elephants each year. Ironically, since the ban on ivory was made years ago, the sell of illegal ivory has skyrocketed! The demand then was way higher than the supply so these 'customers' were willing to pay a lot for these goods. Now, more personnel are hired and elephants are dying now more than ever! Just this one example out of many other 'successful' operations was caught in the act. However, the cruel act of poaching had already been done. The lives of these elephants cannot be replaced. The trade might have been stopped but the act had already been committed.
There's much in this world we cannot control but what we can control is our attitudes. You see, if we decided that an elephant is far too important of an animal to risk losing, we'd join in the fight against poaching. Smuggling may be an art but its fueled by a higher desire for wealth and power. We may not be able to do away with these heinous acts but what we can do is change our attitudes, fight harder and spread the word. If just one person involved in this heinous act is led to understand the harm they 'cause' to this beloved animal, then our work as stewards for the elephant would have borne fruit. Until then, we cannot be silent. Who will speak out with me? :)
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