<p>Elephant ivory that law enforcement has recovered from poachers is sometimes <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160430-kenya-record-breaking-ivory-burn/">destroyed</a> to ensure that it doesn’t end up back on the black market.</p>

Elephant ivory that law enforcement has recovered from poachers is sometimes destroyed to ensure that it doesn’t end up back on the black market.

Photograph by Brent Stirton, Getty

Poaching animals, explained

Illegally taking animals from the wild threatens many species with extinction.

Wild animals are being poached on a massive scale, with millions of individual animals of thousands of species worldwide killed or captured from their native habitats. Poaching poses a growing threat to elephants, rhinos, and other charismatic animals, as well as to smaller and more obscure creatures, like certain lizards and monkeys.

Poachers sometimes kill or capture animals to sell them locally or for the global trade in wildlife. Wildlife trading is a major black market that has increased alongside rising wealth in Asia—a major consumer of wildlife—and the advent of e-commerce and social media websites.

Some animals, such as birds, reptiles, and primates, are captured live so that they can be kept or sold as exotic pets. Slaughtered animals,

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