Southeast Asia is the home to a variety of majestic animals such as tigers and rhinoceros. These animals play a role in the food chain, and extinction could result in unpredictable effects in the ecosystem. This inevitably affects all the other living organisms in Southeast Asia. So what causes these majestic animals to dwindle in numbers?
Image Credit: NationalGeographic
Wildlife trade is a lucrative business which generates a large amount of income. This is true even for legal trades. Statistics from Singapore alone reported trades of over 300,000 animal skin in the year 2000. In addition, there are currently beliefs that certain animal parts have medicinal properties which increase the economic value of these animals.
Despite the lack of conclusive evidence for such properties, believers in traditional medicine become buyers and provide the demand. As such, hunters continue to hunt animals. Ironically, animals being protected by the government has resulted in the price of these animal parts to increase, giving hunters more reason to hunt.
Hunting as a form of sports is still common. While there is a lack of conclusive research as to why humans hunt for fun, current studies show that hunting may be a form of power-play - killing a large or dangerous animal is a sign of strength in the primitive days, signaling to rivals and potential mates. As such, the root behavior of hunting may have persisted in our genetics till date. This hypothesis, however, is yet to be tested and serves only as a possible explanation.
Now you know the driving factors for exploitation to happen, lets go find out why it is a threat to us!