Killer Elephant Loses Tusks in Nepal

[Magrus]

Killer elephant loses tusks in Nepal- MSNBC.com

Now, my beliefs regarding animal rights directly oppose human rights, and are as such, greatly looked down upon by the majority of humans. However, I am curious to see the viewpoints of others on this situation, and how it was handled. The situation I mean being the fact humans have threatened the existance of this species and taken away their natural habitat, and so the species is retaliating by killing the interlopers around it's home.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magrus Now, my beliefs regarding animal rights directly oppose human rights, and are as such, greatly looked upon by the majority of humans. However, I am curious to see the viewpoints of others on this situation, and how it was handled. The situation I mean being the fact humans have threatened the existance of this species and taken away their natural habitat, and so the species is retaliating by killing the interlopers around it's home.

I'm with you. I also find highly suspicious that Nepal's elephant population has dwindled to 100 in recent years, as the article blandly reports. There's a subtext lurking beneath that line, which could well point to advancing villagers, hunters and ivory merchants shooting herds, and government officials turning a blind eye to such matters. Elephants as a whole are peaceable creatures when they and their habitats aren't threatened. Something else is going on, here.

[Tricky]

Since when does Nepal lie in Africa?

[Sean The Owner]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fable There's a subtext lurking beneath that line, which could well point to advancing villagers, hunters and ivory merchants shooting herds, and government officials turning a blind eye to such matters.Something else is going on, here.

i agree, if they dont threaten the elephants home or its well-being, chances are the elephant wont go on a rampage and kill 12 people. obviously theres something missing from this article that should be there

[dragon wench]

I agree...we're definitely not getting the full story here.

To clarify a bit on the type of elephant, I doubt this has anything to do with Africa or African elephants. My bet is that this is an Indian elephant. It would make much more sense given that Nepal is in Asia, rather than Africa
Also.. Indian elephants differ from African elephants in that they have smaller ears and are reputedly more agressive. I'm not saying this in any way justifies what happened, obviously there is far more going on. Just wanted to mention it.

[Silur]

@DW: I think it's the african one that's the more aggresive... after all, the indian elephant has allowed itself to be domesticated.

Still, they have a great memory so if you aggravate either one of them, they're not likely to forget and most of their weight is muscles...

I would have to agree that somethings missing - my current paranoid perspective on reality makes me see this more as an "excuse piece", that is, an article aimed at indemnifying the government since they are doing all they can. The evil poachers are just too smart for them, eh?

[dragon wench]

@Silur,
okay, I really need to get myself sorted out here, my bad memory is clearly acting up again

[Faberge]

Asian Elephant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Geographic Adventure Mag.: India's elephant conflict
Animal Info - Asian Elephant
Elephant - LoveToKnow 1911
Nepalnews.com Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd.
The Himalayan Times
Nepal Mountain News :History Of Mount Everest (Sagarmatha)
Elephant news from Nepal - Elephant News
Experts to Tame Killer Elephant in Eastern Nepal
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Killer Indian elephant shot dead


???

[Magrus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tricky Since when does Nepal lie in Africa?

It doesn't, I honestly do not know how the "Africa" thing got into that link description either. I don't recall typing it, I copied the title and put it into the link I thought. O.o Could be the wine I had for breakfast though, that's always a possibility. I had some trouble getting the link to work, and struggled with it drunk for about 15 minutes before I realized my MSN messenger Today window that popped up autoloads IE when I click on a link, and not FF, and that I disabled IE months ago and yadda yadda....Not to mention my leaving out a word I had to edit back in as well. I do know my geography, aced it all those years ago in school. The only things I ever missed in Geography were the US capitals actually, funny that. Now I feel old and addled.

As to what Fable brought up, I hadn't considered the ivory thing at first. I was just thinking the elephant has to have had a damn good reason to be killing off humans. That makes a lot more sense as to the direct reason why though. Poachers make me all sorts of angry and tempted to take up archery lessons. It would be all sorts of interesting to me to see what the response would be if I went off somewhere poachers did their poaching so I could take them down to sell their teeth on E-bay or something. Of course, that would be murder, not poaching, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikpedia article An animal of this size is potentially dangerous. Care should be taken when walking or driving at night or in the late evening in areas where wild elephants roam. Particularly, potential meetings with unpredictable adult males, or females with nearby young, are best avoided. The most dangerous are aggressive, so-called rogue elephants which are usually young solitary bulls.

Hmm, perhaps someone went to collect some money, er, tusks, and got gored for it? Pissed the bull elephant off when it got too close to home, so it followed the guys trail home, gored a bunch of his neighbors? They kocked it out, took the tusks, sold them, and sent the elephant on his way again, all "humane" like?

I always hated that word, "humane". The "in-humane" treatment is worse IMO too. You can't treat a rat like a dolphin and have it be healthy, or a dog like a bird. Why bother attempting to treat everything like a human?

[Silur]

Yes, I always mix up humane and bestial...

[Malta Soron]

I'm wondering: how does cutting an elephants tusks compare to killing him?

[Silur]

It is of course much better to just remove the elephants tusks than to first kill it _and then_ remove it's tusks. He may have trouble finding a mate for a while, but dead elephants mate even worse. I think what the discussion has drifted over to, is the question of what is happening to all the other elephants who for some reason disappear. The article feels like propaganda, since even though the elephant has killed a number of people it is not being killed in turn - purveying the message that the conservation of elephants is so important that even crazy elephants are saved. Either that, or I'm just being cynical again.

I don't agree on shooting poachers on the spot (which has been the unofficial policy in some countries), because as usual it's the poor, uneducated, desperate and often starving people of the region that end up drawing the shortest straw. If you want to come to terms with the actual problem, you need to spend much more time and money on educating the people, giving them alternative ways to make a living, supporting and compensating them for losses caused by the animals, and most of all, removing the market pull for endangered species and their body parts. I'm strongly opposed to all forms of capital punishment, but if I weren't, I'd put the traders in endangered species - both parts and the actual animals - fairly high on that list... just one or two rows under the end buyers.

The irony of the entire poaching situation is that the more rare the animal, the higher the selling price and thus also the number of poachers willing to take the risk of getting caught. Black rhinos were caught in this vicious circle, since their horns are viewed as so potent an aphrodisiac by chinese medicine - in short, people were willing to pay millions of dollars to get a black rhino horn just to get an erection... and it doesn't work either. Nowadays, the rhinos never get to keep their horns. They are sawed off regularly by wildlife patrols.

[Chimaera182]

Yes, it's always better to remove the tusks of the rhinos or elephants rather than kill them. God knows that we're doing the right thing, depriving them of their defensive weapons. That elephant is going to be dead outside of a week, and man will still have killed him.

[Magrus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chimaera182 Yes, it's always better to remove the tusks of the rhinos or elephants rather than kill them. God knows that we're doing the right thing, depriving them of their defensive weapons. That elephant is going to be dead outside of a week, and man will still have killed him.

*claps* Logic prevails. Before my new friends get back to bake out my appartment as I down a bottle of Jack, I will pose this question now. Something different, but I really don't feel like starting a new thread, as it can relate.

This elephant is just an unknown creature that is somewhere else in the world. Seen only in a news article, which would not have been seen by most people unless they were particularly looking for it. Whether this was done for profit and this article is full of lies or not is up for speculation. However, the reality of the situation is this: the species is numbered, and there are very, very few of them left. I do not doubt that this bull elephant has hurt humans before, whether it did it to seek to drive away those from his young and home, or to keep poachers away is really irrevelant to this creature.

What is relevant is that humans have encroached on this creatures home, and threatened the existance of it's entire species. Let us drop the poaching aspect, and simply pose the theory that humans have gone into the habitat of these creatures and are threatening their lives simply by choosing to live where they happen to be living, or working where they are working. Do you feel this animal was justified in tearing through a village and killing 12 humans in order to drive away the invaders to its home who were threatening it's species existance? If so, why, and if not, why?

[Lady Dragonfly]

quote
"Do you feel this animal was justified in tearing through a village and killing 12 humans in order to drive away the invaders to its home who were threatening it's species existance? If so, why, and if not, why?"

Elephants are very clever animals.
But they are still animals; animals are driven by instincts and don't follow moral or any other laws. You can't preach to them : you shall not kill.... They don't need a justification for their actions.
It is sad that some villagers died. But these things are very common in that part of the world. I saw a documentary about tigers habitually preying on the little kids living on the outskirts of Bombay.
Things happen when men live in close proximity to a wildlife. Whatever the reason, you cannot blame an animal.

Thousands of species go extinct every hour. The main reason is the Man, a self-appointed Lord of the Nature, greedy and ignorant.