Cruelty or just Poverty?

I'm always reading articles in the newspapers these days or hearing people talk about animal cruelty, hunting, illegal poaching - about how horribly heartless and brutal these poachers are. Just today I read an article about leopard poaching. It spoke about how these poor villagers, living in a remote place also sell leopard skins in a tea stall, which is of course, absolutely appalling. The article also said some other interesting things that don’t strike us usually. It said that poaching won't stop, unless it becomes unprofitable, and that's when the demand goes down. Now that creates a bit of a dilemma, doesn’t it?

However, we ought to take a few other perspectives on the issue into consideration, before branding these poor and helpless villagers as cruel, heartless murderers. It’s a little odd to think that these people, who have to struggle to make ends meet every single day and provide for their family, also go around killing leopards and tigers for their own entertainment, isn’t it? Also, the people killing cattle or pigs or chicken aren't doing it just for some sadistic pleasure, are they? They're doing it because they want to survive in this big bad world, just like we do. They need to earn money for a livelihood, to give their wife and children a decent meal for dinner, because they want their children to be happy and literate and doing something meaningful with their lives, and not living the painful life of misery and struggle like they are; and if selling leopard skins is going to help them earn some money, then why not? They're poor, illiterates - on the brink of poverty, desperately trying to make ends meet. They don't know that it is in every sense, the wrong thing to do. It's not these poor people that we ought to blame. It's us - people living in the urban areas with all our everyday luxuries. Animal skins are in demand - because we use it, because we use leather or fur coats. Because it is in demand, the poachers do what they do. In spite of this, it's almost always the poor that get arrested; it's always the people living in rural areas getting accused of these crimes. Yes, what they're doing is wrong, but not for the wrong reasons. However, I’m not saying for one moment that there aren't other cases of animal cruelty out there that are absolutely outrageous!

I'm just saying that we can't just blindly accuse these people of animal cruelty without blinking an eye. If that's all that we're going to do, then we should also be the ones giving them better jobs to keep their homes running.