Tiger Poaching

I feel like I should go into a bit more detail about a specific way that people are failing to measure up to the great species we've made ourselves out to be. Tiger poaching is something I feel very strongly about, and one of the main things that pushed me to create change.
While there are some things being done about this, such as the work done by the WPSI (Wildlife Protection Society of India) who try to investigate all unnatural deaths of both tigers and leopards in India, most of the public seem to turn a blind eye to this disgraceful act. The poaching and seizing of the body parts of tigers is the leading cause of death for these big cats. There are less than 7,000 tigers left in the while, leaving as few as 400 per sub species.
60% of chinese medicines use rare animal parts such as tiger bone, bear gall bladder, rhinoceros horn, dried geckoes and a plethora of other animal parts. And once these parts have been obtained, the rest of the animal is sold ilegally or gone to waste. The income of the international trade of wild animal parts is an estimated "$6 billion-a-year business" and rises each year, as the parts become harder to find due to the decreasing population of wildlife.
The majority chinese doctors refused to have their methods tested to prove their effectiveness.
China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and Great Britain are all involved in the tiger trade. Hong Kong is the main importer of Chinese tiger products, accounting for nearly half of its annual business. An estimated 1,900 kg of tiger bone was exported to Japan from Taiwan in 1990; equal to 400 or 500 tigers.

Of course there are laws to prohibit the poaching and distribution of wild animal parts, but the business is incredibly profitable; as a bowl of tiger penis soup goes for $320 in Taiwan, and a pair of eyesfor $170. Powdered tiger humerus bone brings up to $1,450 lb. in Seoul.

The harsh truth is that we can't help  these animals if not everyone cooperates. There will always be laws, and consequences for breaking them, but there will also always be people who manage to get away with it. What our society needs is more respect for those who can't demand for it themselves. We value money over lives, and no one sees a problem with it. We either don't bother to help the animals in danger, or we decide that we like them, and to help them we will keep them in our homes as pets. There are hundreds of websites from which you can purchase not only wild animals but extremely endangered animals as well. This is almost impossible to control or punish because of the great amount of websites that do this. We need to give these animals what they need- their habitats back. We need to overcome out selfish and greedy nature, and work with the earth rather than against it.
30 animal species can disappear with the loss of just one plant species.
So how can we reverse the damage we've done and inform people so that they care enough to really make a change? Because I'm tired of watching it happen, unable to stop it.

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