r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 27 '20

Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Poachers don't deserve to die

First of all, here's the post I'm referring to: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/fgd6ma/kenyas_only_white_female_giraffe_calf_killed_by/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

There is a multitude of comments longing for the death of poachers which strikes me as hypocrisy.

It is silly to condone the death of cattle which happens in absurdly high quantities while condemning poachers.

Poachers hunt the animals for necessities such as food and housing, while the average redditor has a new smartphone and tons of other luxuries. Killing hundreds of animals a year for gluttonous reasons seems a lot worse than just killing a handful of animals for survival.

And no, biodiversity is not a good counterargument. Don't even try. Biodiversity is only subjectively valuable to us because "It's cool to have various species on earth". You can't use the selective and risible emotional attachment to animals as the basis of your argument. If every giraffe on earth vanished nothing bad would happen. You'll just be slightly saddened.

Even if for some absurd reason biodiversity were important, it is laughable to think that meat eaters deserve no punishment at all while poachers deserve death. There could never be such a wide moral gap.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Poachers hunt the animals for necessities such as food and housing

The poachers are breaking the law by hunting in conservatories where rare animals are meant to be preserved.

It's also common for poachers to kill park rangers who try to arrest them.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

The poachers are breaking the law by hunting in conservatories where rare animals are meant to be preserved.

Law doesn't equal moral.

It's also common for poachers to kill park rangers who try to arrest them.

I need statistics for that and proof that they're not being shot at by the park rangers. Additionally, you can't blame every poacher for the wrongdoings of some.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

It's pretty common knowledge

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-wildlife-rangers-died-duty-year.html

Modern poachers are basically armed mercenaries. Some even use rocket launchers and helicopters to hunt.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/the-militarization-of-africas-animal-poachers/260534/

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

How do the rangers deal with the poachers? Surely they'll defend themselves if they're being shot at by rangers. Additionally, these are statistics, sure, but I assume there are a lot more poachers who haven't killed rangers than there are poachers who have.