It’s a dream come true for those of us who hate the very word “poacher”
and the awful things poachers do to innocent animals. Shoot, poison, trap and torture,
cut off tusks or horns and leave them to die a hideous death. All for money, also aptly known as “filthy
lucre.”
gets his. It happened last week in South
Africa, where a rhinoceros-horn poacher was killed by an elephant (the “Enforcer”!)
and eaten by a pride of lions. The animals’ actions gave new meaning to “poetic
justice”: they took the law into their own . . . paws.
man exclaiming, but advocates for
animals who shout “Huzzah!” It’s great that
one poacher got his just desserts, or served as same for the lions. That poacher
got his comeuppance — or the opposite, his go-down-ance.
the poacher’s end was reported by his fellow poachers. But who knows — maybe they killed him for some reason (dividing the projected profit
from sale of the rhino’s horn?) and then left his body to the lions, who in turn left only a skull and a pair of pants. Even so: one fewer poacher to apprehend.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/africa/south-africa-poacher-rhino-lions.html?emc=edit_th_190408&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=207602740408
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| Rex-Shutterstock pic |
If the story’s true, what a great kids’ book plot: Evil poachers decide
to make money by killing animals for their in-demand body parts, but the
animals have had enough of slaughter, and decide to fight back. The elephant — representing animals threatened with extinction by poachers — steps up to stop the lead poacher, forever,
and then the hungry lions, in memory of Zimbabwa’s Cecil, the majestic lion lured off his sanctuary to be killed, finish him off. Literally.
pay the ultimate price for their cruelty.
to pay exorbitant prices for various animals and animal parts are driving the
poachers to begin with, can’t also feel the wrath of the animals. Traditional Eastern medicine
values donkeys’ boiled skin, crushed lion bones, pangolin scales and rhino
horns. . . and the Asian demand for ivory trinkets from elephant tusks, shark fin soup and dog and cat meat only add
to the horror.
poacher. Last July, three men suspected
of being rhino-horn poachers were killed by lions. Again, money was the lure,
with rhino horn going for thousands per pound, and whole horns selling for far more.
To obtain an entire horn, poachers drug
the animal, then use a machete to “hack away at the face,” before leaving the rhino to bleed to death.
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| NYTimes pic |
It’s not unlike the fate of sharks, whose fins are cut off, leaving them
unable to swim or defend themselves. Often
still alive, they sink slowly to the bottom of the sea, dying of suffocation or
being eaten by other creatures.
the Biblical injunction: “. . . avenge not
yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is
mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
all, it was the “holy Bible” that gave men
dominion over “the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” — or so said the
translators and others who for centuries needed a seemingly official authorization
for their cruel and murderous tendencies.