Thread: Preban ivory is my favorite material for scales

What is really sad about all this is it could be stopped, if the right people wanted to.

Like the black bear problem here in our own backyard here in the US, where we assign only a handful of officers to track down serial offenders and then hand out “slap on the wrist” punishment to those convicted. I can only imagine the level of enforcement and prosecution in countries like Africa.

It is much like the gun control issue, it’s the user, not the gun that’s the problem. If we gave the death penalty to anyone using a firearm in the commission of a crime… and then enforced it, gun crimes would dramatically decrease. But it is not economically or politically expedient, to do so… for both sides.

Instead of burning the ivory they could sell it in countries that have bans. Use the money to pay bounties on poachers. Burn piles of poachers instead. This is not politically or morally correct and so it won't happen. And as long as 1 country condones the sale there will be a demand. I am all for using ivory to make beautiful things and I love to see a moose head hanging over a bar. (better yet a politician's head) :<0) As many of you state there are right and wrong ways of doing it. Wild life management can be a real joke. Sometimes it seems like the decisions are made by city dwelling soccer mom's who have no clue what wild life is. And what I say to them is shut up. You own /enslave a dog, cat,or worse yet an animal that should live it's life in nature,you over feed it food it should never eat, and you over breed/cross breed them until they become something god never intended to have living on this planet and you have the gall to point your finger at hunters for doing what is natural ? Sigh....... The simple fact is humans are going to do what is best for themselves. Some will have no concern for their soul when it comes to making money and others just have no concept of the damage their actions can cause. I have concluded in my own mind that this is all a part of nature. People not only kill to survive but they also kill for profit. Humans will use every resource on this planet until it is gone. We can't help it, it's what we do. And when we have come to the point where our resources can no longer support the populations we will start to die off. Isn't that the way nature works? Plenty of rain brings plenty of grass. More grass means more rabbits. More rabbits means more wolves. Then the rain stops...........

this is going to keep going on till there are no more elephants. or there will be a tiny genetically isolated portion of them left. this is really a people problem. there are people who lust after ivory, and there are people who are willing, against all right-thinking arguments against it, to provide that ivory at whatever cost. greed, avarice and lust for ivory is one part, and poverty is another.

the Chinese, i read over the weekend in the nytimes, have come up with a solution for the age-old problem of not enough gall bladders from bears to satisfy the demand. so someone over there has a bunch of captive bears with gall bladder pumps installed in them. they want to double the number of bears being used and some Chinese people had a big demonstration against it.

i think there should be a special circle in hell for people who will not see that this kind of exploitation, of gall bladders or tusks, is just wrong. can't buy legal ivory? oh well, it was fun while it lasted. guess i'll have to use something else.

i can't think of one legitimate reason why any elephant should die because someone somewhere feels entitled to a part of it's body.

The reason they burn the tusks is so as to not fuel (no pun intended) the market. If it's released and sold though seemingly innocent it just whets the appetite around the world for more.

You know what U.S Customs does with all the stuff they Seize?

it's similar to several years ago, at one time the U.S Border Patrol were issued B.A.R.'s and then one day they decided to not issue them any more. They were all collected in their wood cases and all sent to a smelter and guess what they did to them.

Anyone who thinks there is plenty of pre ban Elephant ivory in the U.S, well, I've got a pet badger who uses a straight to shave himself and sells the hair a few times a year.

Very little gets burned.
Ivory auctions raise $15 million in Africa - World news - World environment | NBC News

As long as there is money to be made,as much as I detest the slaughter of Elephants,the carnage will continue.
Are basically two countrys fueling the trade in Ivory,China and Japan,both are approved Buyers by the international community.
These same two countrys are wiping out Millions of sharks ea.year and dissimate the whale populations.
Great Britain has huge stocks of Ivory from when they raped africa and india. England is an approved seller of Ivory,but only to countrys that are approved buyers