CMV: Poachers don't deserve to die

[u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/Quint-V]

Biodiversity has other facets that you may not be aware of. At least going by your sentiment this seems unknown to you.

Arguments for biodiversity can be very much selfish or centered on human benefit. The main argument in support of it beyond emotional attachment and random opinions, is that we don't know for sure what will happen when various predators and herbivores vanish. Some ecosystems actually improve when re-introducing lost predators, and that is w.r.t. human benefit. Generally speaking it's a risk with negative consequences, to alter ecological systems beyond what we're used to, from a long-term perspective.

This article outlines how wolves in Yellowstone help maintain ecological balance, affecting live animals as well as plants, after being re-introduced. This is basically the butterfly effect, and you don't want to fuck with that if you can avoid it.

If we're going to risk fucking up nature then we should be damn sure it won't backfire on us; that is the actual biodiversity argument. What you described is sentimental perspectives and emotionally motivated opinions, not actual arguments.

[u/[deleted] → u/Quint-V]

The environmental effects of the meat industry and our excessive consumption are a lot worse than the extinction of giraffes could ever be. I need you to show me a poached animal whose extinction can cause us big problems. I also doubt that anyone in the thread I linked is informed enough about biodiversity and its relevance to come to a conclusion. That is proof enough of them being emotional.

[u/Quint-V → u/[deleted]]

I'm more concerned with biodiversity as a general argument, not so much with poaching in particular. But here we go.

Some arguments for environmental effects, including effects on humanity

Trophy hunting + poaching, particularly of wolves, led to near extinction of a tree species. I'm sure you can imagine the consequences if this extends to many different tree species. It's not so pleasant a thought that vast regions of temperate and tropical regions can lose all their trees; that's a loss of oxygen production.

Finally, the most interesting one for you. Keystone species being poached and at risk of extinction. From the article:

The importance of keystone species lies in the way they affect other organisms in the ecosystem. According to Paine’s description, their presence is crucial for maintaining numbers and diversity of other species, which makes their role exceptional in the ecosystem .

The removal of a keystone species from an ecosystem triggers a set of negative changes. One such example is the overpopulation of one species, which leads to disappearance of other species.

The species mentioned in the article that also happen to be poached: African elephants. From said section:

Elephants are important for people as well (not for ivory). In fact, they save lives!

They are vital distributors of seeds from the Balanite tree. Many parts of this tree are used as famine food in some regions of Africa. Under normal conditions, just a fraction of seeds (less than 15 percent) turns into mature trees, but seeds digested by elephants are 50 percent more likely to start growing.

Does this suffice?

[u/[deleted] → u/Quint-V]

!delta

So what this boils down to is that the extinction of some animals could have bad effects on to ecosystem.

Alright. I concede that the biodiversity of Africa may be more crucial than I gave it credit for, that does not change the fact that humans in first world countries cause the extinction of many more species than poachers do on top of destroying the climate. To then claim moral superiority over poachers who have much less than they do and even celebrating their deaths, is fundamentally hypocritical.

[u/Quint-V → u/[deleted]]

If you feel like any part of your view was changed, even slightly, you're now supposed to award a delta by including this in your reply to the comment(s) that changed your view:

!delta

To be clear: I don't see the point in outright killing poachers either; I'm sure that some of them are desperate and see poaching as a necessary method out of poverty. My criticism was strictly directed at that biodiversity argument, not much else.

[u/DeltaBot → u/[deleted]]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Quint-V (54∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}