What does poaching do to the environment?

Poaching affects the environment by reducing the number of animals in important links in the food chain to the point where the ecology of an entire region suffers. In some cases, the remaining animals in that species suffer as well.

Poachers who strike at animals that have sophisticated societies, such as elephants, strike at the organization of an entire region. Researchers have found that elephants do grieve. There are examples of elephants who sit and mourn next to the bodies of others in the herd, keeping scavengers away for days at a time. Because the species being poached is often crucial to the biome, driving that species into endangerment or even extinction places many other species at risk.