It's not just the poachers, it's also the customers. Allowing a precious animal to get killed just to get some worthless, not even effective powder, in a futile attempt to enhance their malehood.

Evil me sometimes fantasizes about real-life shadowbanning such people. When you catch them, mark them with an RFID or indelible paint. Now that you can recognize them, give their votes in elections the weight of zero. Skip them when hiring for important positions. Let them live their merry life in peace, but completely remove them from "adult affairs". You don't have to tell them. I reserve the same treatment for racists and homophobes by the way.

Of course you can't and shouldn't do that. On a serious note, it boggles the mind how much harm is done by ignorant and superstitious people even today...

Botswana has/had a "shot to kill" policy aimed at poachers https://mg.co.za/article/2016-03-16-botswanas-shoot-to-kill-...

I know it's insane to equate a human life to an animal's but this makes me so furious I want to agree. At the very least it seems we need to have repercussions in place that are so grave that these people stop trying to drive animals to extinction for their own stupid gains.

It's not insane. Other animals aren't as intelligent as human animals* but they're sentient and have personality. It's perfectly OK to treat such people who abuse or kill animals with the same disregard they show for others.

* the word animal derives from the same root as 'animated' - we are animals because we can control our movements, n contrast to rooted entities like plants.

I find these kinds of statements ironic when daily we kill millions of cows in horrible factory abattoirs for the meat. Pity we can't at least be consistent; endangered or not, you're taking a life. Outrage seems justified.

I think the difference is that a cow is only alive because we are breeding it for meat/milk. If we were breeding rhinos for their horns then I wouldn't have any more problem with killing them than I do with killing cows for meat.

how about fishing in the oceans?

Isn't this already happening in some countries in Africa?

And I agree with you. I would also add "bounties on poachers" to your statement.

I think it's a capital crime in China.

Hear, hear