A couple years ago, the owner of an African Safari company was next to me for a cross country flight.
He confirmed that there is no real poaching problem, nor are animals endangered in the countries of Africa where they have legal and well maintained hunting laws and seasons.
He sort of implied that if they do come across poachers, they take care of the problem locally.
That said, I’m absolutely no animal rights guy. I took a lot of heat here on FR the other day because I commented that a $3500 reward (their life savings) for a missing dog was kind of stupid.
Animals that serve a purpose are great. (sled dogs, work dogs, police dogs etc) But I have no real use for pets.
Killing a rhino at a zoo is the height of cowardice.
I have no way to confirm or refute what you were told.I've only visited national parks in three countries:Tanzania,Kenya and South Africa.
Tanzania and Kenya are two of the poorest nations on earth.I don't have the first clue what laws,if any,they have in force regarding the hunting of "game".But it's not at all difficult to imagine people trying to kill elephants and rhinos in order to get horns/tusks that are worth the local equivalent of three years income.
As for Kruger National Park in South Africa...that country isn't quite as poor (or,perhaps.nearly as poor) as Tanzania and Kenya.However,Kruger is in the northeastern part of the country right up against the border with Mozambique,one of the poorest nations on earth.Our guide there told us that the poachers at Kruger are almost all from Mozambique and most of the rest are from Zimbabwe (which also borders on Kruger).
I'm surely no expert on this matter but it seems that hunting laws aren't a factor in *every* country's poaching problem.