Birds poached for their ivory bills

[Catherine]

The helmeted hornbill has become a target for poachers. They have an ivory like bill. Now that work is being done to protect elephants and rhinos from poachers, the poachers are turning to the helmeted hornbill and an ivory source.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0


I hope they are able to protect the birds and prevent to poachers from killing them. They are endangered and there are not that many. A big rush of poaching could be enough to drive them to extinction.  It seems that the poachers have no regard for life. They will kill anything for a profit.

[Tobi]

When will humans just stop putting a price on animal body-parts?

How awful. I personally wouldn't want to buy anything made of birds' beaks! I could handle carved bone if I knew the bones were from an already dead animal, but not if it had been killed specially for some body part.

These birds must be protected in some way!

[Catherine]

It seems there is no end to the weird things people will buy. Poachers only go after body parts because someone will pay for them. We need to educate people and convince them to stop buying  ivory and anything else that is obtained by poaching.

They can fight against poachers and come up with ways to protect the animals, but the best protection is to not buy the products.