Sunday Ladas
Mr. Ippolito
AP Biology C-EVEN
20 September 2018
Citation:
Weintraub, Karen. “Elephant Tusk DNA Helps Track Ivory Poachers.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2018,
Elephant Tusk DNA Helps Track Ivory Poachers
By: Karen Weintraub
Recent studies have shown that the elephant population is decreasing and elephants are at risk for going extinct. It is that poachers kill about 40,000 elephants per year, currently there is a population of 400,000 elephants world-wide. Poachers are killing elephants left and right however, scientists have seem to have found ways that will help stop these killings by using an elephants DNA. Dr. Wasser, the scientists who developed this theory, believes that by using the tusk DNA it will catch poachers. Dr. Wasser has developed a genetic map of African elephants by analyzing the animals poop. With this genetic map he found that he was now able to link it to the confiscated elephant tusks, this would conclude where the elephant was living when it was killed. This is major progress that could help the law enforcement teams to locate areas that they suspect poachers will go to and kill elephants. Law enforcement teams have stated that this newly discovered way to help track poachers have greatly improved and helped tremendously the fight to help find them.
Ivory poachers are a problem that are consistent throughout the society everywhere in the world. Creating ways to stop poachers of all kind is a necessity to the environment and to the animals that are being killed. Animals all over the world are being driven to extinction because of the resources they produce. Humans change the environment around them to make sure there is a greater chance of survival for them without taking into consideration the animals and environment around them that they could be killing. Creating solutions to stopping the ivory poachers could be the first stop to stopping all types of poachers and eventually finding solutions that will help improve the environment.
I thought that this article was constructed in a exceptional manor, I feel that the author made very good points and the authors tone showed the point of view he favoured. I felt that the piece itself was very opinionated, and that Karen Weintraub (the author) did not look at the other side of the idea. I felt that the article could have been less opinionated which would have made the article even better. Weintraub did use a lot of facts that stated that convinced the author enough that ivory poaching is a bad thing and that scientists finding ways to stop this would be beneficial. Lastly, I felt that she could have included more information about how the new piece of evidence has been helping stop elephant killings. Overall, I felt this piece was very well written, however, it could have been less opinionated.
Weintraub, Karen. “Elephant Tusk DNA Helps Track Ivory Poachers.” The New York
ReplyDeleteTimes, The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2018,
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In Sunday’s current event, she reviewed an article that provided a new and interesting way to stop elephant poachers from killing off all the elephants for their ivory. I felt that she included a lot of really good facts and details throughout her review that showed that this is an issue. For example, she cites how “poachers kill about 40,000 elephants per year, currently there is a population of 400,000 elephants world-wide”. Also, I felt like the organization of her review was very well thought out. I think that her ideas flowed really nicely. She starts with what the problem is, backs it up with statistics, goes into how this problem can potentially be solved, and then relates it back to how it affects us rather nicely. Lastly, I felt that she included basically everything necessary when talking about her topic. After I read her review, there were no big parts of the story that I did not understand. Also, I think that Sunday chose a really important topic that isn’t getting as much attention as it should. I had briefly heard about elephants being on the verge of extinction a while ago, but I had not heard any recent information on the matter. So, I really like this topic because it brought me up to date on something that should really be getting more attention.
Overall, the content of Sunday’s review was very nicely organized and informative, however, I think that sometimes her language is a bit too simple and her sentence structures can be a bit confusing at times. I think that this is something that she can very easily fix. Reading your work out loud can help to show if the structure or wording is awkward. I think that going over her work maybe a few more times and perhaps replacing some words with synonyms and rereading her work would improve the overall quality. For example, words like “poop” and sentences like “It is that poachers kill about 40,000 elephants per year, currently there is a population of 400,000 elephants world-wide.” can be rephrased to be more formal and clear.
Despite a few things that Sunday could improve on with her writing, the content of her review was pretty well presented. I think that Sunday chose a really important topic to report on, as not many people seem to be paying too much attention to the fact that elephants are still being poached. As I mentioned before, I had heard a little bit about the decreasing population of elephants years ago, I have not been updated on the issue with new, relevant information. I think that Sunday’s review was very informative and shone a light on something that wasn’t very out in the open. After reading this, I feel compelled to read this article and seek out more information on the matter so I can be more educated about more ways that I can help to prevent the extinction of elephants. Elephants are very intelligent creatures and I think it is incredibly important that we try very hard to stop poachers from killing off their species.
Sunday’s article choice concerned the poaching of elephants worldwide and described a new method which is being used to track poachers. I thought Sunday’s review was thorough and included the necessary context for the issue, and I thought she did an excellent job framing the article with other relevant information. I also thought she used figures and statistics well to prove her argument, such as the figure about 40,000 elephants being killed per year. I also liked the way that she honestly critiqued the tone of the writer and suggested viable ways to improve the validity of the article.
ReplyDeleteOne problem I had with Sunday’s article was some of her grammar and sentence structure. Overall the article was clear and concise, but at points the language was a little too casual or her sentence structure was confusing. These are really easy things to fix and I think that with some proofreading her review would be really great. One other problem I had was that she did not use enough detail when talking about the new method for catching poachers, and I was left a little confused at how the elephant’s DNA leads to a poacher.
Overall, I thought Sunday’s review was wonderful. She brought attention to an issue which is sometimes sidelined, despite the fact that elephant’s are a keystone species which affect the environment around them significantly. One thing that surprised me was the high number of elephants being poached each year out of the population, which was a figure that shocked me. I think Sunday did a great job bringing attention to this important issue.
Sunday's article explained how new tracking methods and technologies can help wildlife biologists find poachers. Some aspects of this article which I thought were well written included her well written explanation of how the scientists tracked the elephants. This is important for the reader to understand in order to fully understand the article. Additionally, I also liked how Sunday explains why poachers are so harmful to species, as in "Animals all over the world are being driven to extinction because of the resources they produce". Lastly, I like how you pointed out that the article was significantly biases and opinionated, which is important to take into account when reading the article.
ReplyDeleteI think there are some areas where Sunday's review could be improved. For example, she could have included more statistics about the numbers of elephants being killed. This would give her arguments a stronger backing and help the reader understand the scope of poaching. Additionally, the grammar and language could be better revised so that the reader can understand the review more clearly.
Reading this article was surprising to me because I have not thought about how tracking elephants can help track the poachers as well. Surely, poaching is a very serious issue which we must work to stop. This new method could work to target the poachers which cause such a serious threat to the survival of many endangered species. Overall, Sunday did a very good job on this review, and the article itself is very informative.