Ivory poaching causes enormous welfare harm to individual elephants and disrupts the complex social structures of elephant herds. The legal ivory trade debate has direct implications for elephant suffering.
Poaching kills cause acute suffering — elephants are shot with high-powered weapons that may not kill immediately, or poisoned with cyanide that causes slow death over hours. Family members that survive face profound social disruption — the loss of a matriarch removes decades of ecological knowledge and social glue. Young elephants that witness poaching events show lasting behavioural abnormalities consistent with psychological trauma. The welfare harm of ivory poaching extends far beyond the individual animal killed to the social unit that loses members and structure.