Thread: Ivory scales

This past October National Geographic did a big piece on poaching elephants for ivory, i was stunned to read that 25,000 thousands were killed last year only. Interestingly they also claimed that most of the ivory was used for religious artifacts.

Whats happening today Is horrible without question

I was traveling to a knife show, crossing an international border. Since all the bags were x-rayed, it should have been obvious that I had my table ware present. No barriers to any of that. But, subject to physical inspection the question was asked as to handle materials. I said "mammoth ivory" for a couple scales that were blue/brown, clearly showing the correct dentine lines and all the inspector heard was "ivory". Once the supervisor appeared, I asked for a moment's pause and explained the differences between elephant and fossilized ivory including the time spent underground and how none of the previous three generations of human beings could possibly have participated in the death of the animal merely to obtain the tusks. I think he let me go because the ivory was not classic white, it was a story he'd never heard before and because I had a ready internet site reference that explained the differences in detail.

But, the delay meant that the odds of running across someone who won't listen or is not allowed to, or only has a limited ability to respond to certain key words in a sentence, becomes greater and so I no longer travel with ivory materials just to avoid the hassle.