food for thought.
 

On Friday evening, May 8, you can see PERC Executive Director Terry Anderson in prime time on ABC's "20/20" with host John Stossel. As part of a special segment on saving endangered species, Anderson recommends markets as the best way to preserve those parts of our environment that we value most and that includes endangered species. The show airs at 10 p.m. ET.

ABC promotes the show as follows:

THE BEST WAY TO SAVE MANY ENDANGERED SPECIES IS TO EAT THEM. International bans on the trade of rare animal parts (tiger organs, elephant tusks, rhino horns) have been about as successful as the international war on drugs. Why? Because wherever there is a demand strong enough, market forces overwhelm law enforcement. Terry Anderson of PERC, the Property and Environmental Research Center, claims that governments have repeatedly failed when they tried to save animals by banning their sale -- it failed with the Colobus monkey in West Africa Å* with the alligator in China Å* and now, with the tiger in Asia. It's quite the conceit that a few conservation groups think a government decree can change history, and get a billion plus people to change their habits. By contrast, does America have a shortage of chickens? No, because people own them and eat them. Allowing private owners to sell animals for food or tourism saved the rhino and the elephant in Africa, and the bison in America. It could save the tiger too, if environmental groups would drop their resistance.

Difficult to tune into this program I suspect, but no doubt that you can give us a report?
Who are PERC?

I saw Stossel talk about this a little this morning and it's an interesting concept. If you get past the idea of "farming" of these animals, it would definately bring the numbers up to a much better level. Though through destruction of alot of their natural enviornments, these animals will never be free to roam naturally. If they could increase the numbers to reintroduce them back to the wild that would be nice but most likely that won't happen.

I don't think this will be possible with some animals. I could be wrong but even zoo's don't have great numbers of animals breeding.
Might work with some but would they be happy in a smaller space?
Do people eat tiger? Elephant? Not sure if I could.

It's not an original concept.

The land is shrinking due to over population... that's a given.

where are these animals going to go?

There's a greater root problem.

People eat all kinds in different cultures / countries...

I really think over time we are going to loose many species of mammals / reps whatever is done or isn't. So much of their natural habitats have been and increasingly are taken over whether it be for farming, illegal drug station poisoning etc.

Using some mentioned above for food - I really dont see how they would breed sufficiently to produce this and also help there 'endangered' status.
Tigers / rhinos etc are no comparison to hatching out chickens! Do you know how long elephants are pregnant for? Just think how many chickens are born, bred, hatched in this time.

I'm certainly not against animals used as food consumption don't get me wrong. I have 'pet' chickens and also chickens for the table, eat the rabbits the dogs catch and we have a pig every year that ends up filling ours and our families freezer.

Hi Anna,

EJ's original post contained the quote "(tiger organs, elephant tusks, rhino horns) " so these animals are in fact used not for food (which would be considered useful) but for trinkets and supply to the chinese medicine market. There is also a huge market for "bush meat", a trade which in its illegal form saw the reduction of the Congo gorilla population from 11,000 to a mere 3,000 during the course of the civil war in the Congo (now the Demcratic republic of Congo).

Its typical that the farming of these animals for our use is having to be considered as a way of "saving" them when the human desire for them has led to their near extinction in the first place.

Time and time again people will say you can't change cultures. What you can't change is human nature, we are plunderers and killers, thats what makes us so sucessful as a species.