The Elephant Effect

Have you ever stopped to think about all the prehistoric animals that once roamed the earth? Are you aware that as we speak millions of elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory? Did you know that we, as the people can try to prevent this? Recently I have read an article called. “Slaughter of the African Elephants” by Samantha Strindberg and Fiona Maisels about how elephants are being driven into extinction by people who are desperate for their ivory.

            In the article, Strindberg and Maisels talk about how elephants are being driven into extinction by humans who don’t care too much about how they place a major impact on our environment, but only kill them for their ivory, which they use for jewelry. In the article, it says “Forest elephants play a crucial ecological role in the life of the forests they inhabit, places of incredible biodiversity and one of earth’s most important carbon-sequestering regions.” Which means that life might change drastically since people are killing off forest elephants just for their ivory.

Also in the article it says, “A universal attribute of humanity is compassion. We protect those in harm’s way. We need to show this compassion to forest elephants, giving them space to roam and protection from danger. Most crucially, people must stop buying ivory. If we do not act, we will have to shamefully admit to our children that we stood by as elephants were driven out of existence.” Which is pretty much saying that elephants are very important to our environment, and in the future when there are no more elephants roaming the earth, there will be no one to blame but us, as humans for buying and selling ivory without having the slightest clue of what it can do to us. Elephants not only have a good influence on our environment, but they also have feelings just as well as humans do. Babies die from heartbreak and loneliness after losing their parents, when killing one elephant, think of how many babies will die.               

I think that it’s wrong to kill elephants just for their ivory. They don’t deserve to die. In fact, they deserve to live much longer than they do. Elephants are part of the reason that humans can live the way that we do. Elephants plant trees, which contribute to our oxygen, helping us to breathe better. So instead of killing elephants.. we should be praising them. Humans can survive without ivory, so is it really worth killing a harmless animal who only contributes to the environment?