Illegal ivory crush in Denver to send message to poachers, traffickers

[mdengraver]

Illegal ivory crush in Denver to send message to poachers, traffickers

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...-to-send-message-to-poachers-traffickers?lite

 

[graniteguy52]

I am not for the poaching of elephants, however it is a tremendous waste of ivory to just crush it or burn it (in some cases). It is so beautiful and fun to work with, I can't imagine just destroying it!

 

[mdengraver]

It may also have the opposite effect and increase the pressure on the ivory trade for more poaching. The road may be paved with good intentions but could backfire.

 

[Marrinan]

There are areas with tremendous over populations of elephants. They have to destroy the ivory. What a waste. If I was in charge I would trank the elephants, remove the tusks or die them so they would be easily identified. Use the proceeds from the ivory sale to better arm the wardens. They already shoot to kill poachers but the poachers are better armed. Same with rhino. Like the buffalo here in the US the time of wild elephants has passed, to d**n many people.

 

[Crazy Horse]

There are areas with tremendous over populations of elephants. They have to destroy the ivory. What a waste. If I was in charge I would trank the elephants, remove the tusks or die them so they would be easily identified. Use the proceeds from the ivory sale to better arm the wardens. They already shoot to kill poachers but the poachers are better armed. Same with rhino. Like the buffalo here in the US the time of wild elephants has passed, to d**n many people.

And who would foot the bill for such a project?

We place too much emphisis on Ivory when there are better materials such as Micarta.

 

[Gargoyle]

per the article: roughly 500,000 elephants still living in Africa, and 30,000 killed by poachers in 2012- at that rate they'll be wiped out in a dozen years.

 

[diandwill]

DYE vs DIE........ I can't think of ONE reason why not to dye tusks pink. Let's not wait for one more killing. Pink tusks say to poachers, "There is no value." To tourists pink says, "Support wildlife. We are heading for extinction." SHARE THIS PLEASE !

 

[mdengraver]

I saw elephants in the wild on safari in Kenya. They are the most beautiful, inquisitive animals. There intelligence is undeniable. You actually witness them solving very complicated problems alone and together in their environment. They even mourn the death of other elephants.

 

[rod]

Like most things in life, the situation is more complex, but clearly, as Africa rivals the US in gun ownership, we can expect more poaching for income, and many people face desperate economic circumstances. The much greater slaughter of the American Buffalo and the Carrier Pigeon where not forced by desperate economic circumstance of the new incoming peoples.

Forced culling of whole African elephant family groups has to be done by game wardens, since the old migrating paths for these noble animals have been eliminated. As Nature's natural bulldozers their once useful cycle of, deforest then move on and return many years later, now ruins the preservation area for themselves and other species. Rapid population growth of undisturbed elephants in confined areas turns out to be not good. Game wardens have warehouses full of ivory, and wish to get license to sell legally, to use money to buy more land for elephants. This has been denied. Farmers surrounding the preserves grow tempting crops within easy reach of the herds which get shot when they invade the fields. We are not good at solving these problems.

Kenya did a public burning of tons of ivory, at the same time allows "sport" hunters to kill an elephant, if a very large fee is paid to help the parks.

Meanwhile in Asia working elephants are in decline, and mahouts need 'on the hoof ivory sales' on the high street to boost their earning for forestry, and ritual precession, otherwise the domestic elephant dies out.

In general, in case you haven't noticed, anywhere human beings show up, trouble ain't far behind.

Here is a dignified ceremony showing tusk trimming in Asia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDU3qgdUXnI

So not all ivory is the result of slaughter, but a great deal is.

Please correct my thinking in this complicated story?

Rod

 

[mdengraver]

Interesting! Tusk trimming makes more sense. Use it as a recyclable material as it grows back. Hopefully the elephants can still use their tusks for digging,etc.

 

[tundratrekers@mtaonline.n]

I know there are some farmers teaming with beekeepers to protect elephants and crops.

They surround the crops with bee hives spaced as fence posts.
Tie ropes between them.
When the elephant hits the "trip line", knocks over the connected hives,they are said to NEVER do it twice,memory and all.

P.S. We have similar problems with some of the walrus ivory here,poaching and illegal trade to non natives of WHITE ivory,fossilized is fine.
But they also try to make fake fossil ivory through staining and burial.
michael

michael

 

[rod]

Michael,

Thank you, I had not heard of this bee hive approach. Years ago I wrote about some kind of collective responsibility assigned to surrounding farmers peripheral to nature reserves. My thought was that a bonus could be paid to surrounding farmers commensurate to the numbers of healthy elephants in the reserves, and discounting game warden culls. This could be an incentive to see farmer and neighboring game reserve as a combined system. My own view is that the responsibility to finance such schemes should be born globally, remote dwellers, such as myself, should share collectively, and evenly, throughout all nations concerned with living on a planet rapidly tending towards a human uni-species. However, in the US we need look no further than the conflict stemming from the reintroduction of the native wolf into Yellowstone reserve, and the difficulty of a breeding corridor to connect to packs up north. Seen by the population as a whole, the project is an enlightened one. Seen through the eyes of ranchers in surrounding areas, it represents a loss of livestock, and many do not welcome it, having successfully shot the wolf to extinction. It is a net loss of income for the rancher. Here again, I think the nation would be better assuming collective responsibility in any loss to the immediate affected ranchers. The ranchers, being the front line between the 'call of the wild', and an agriculturally tamed landscape that provides my dinner, cannot fairly take the brunt of the change.

I am beginning to digress, but it is a similar complex situation with differing viewpoints.

What say you?

Rod

 

[Neo Dutch]

Tusk and horn trimming is dangerous and a waste of time. In the case of Elephants, some tusks have long nerves that travel through the tusk. Cut through that and the animal will die from an infection. Even if you don't hit the nerve, poachers will still kill the animal and take what is left. That is why they kill young that barely have any tusks at all.

Dyeing the tusk, as opposed to photoshop like the pic above is also useless. The underlying material is not effected.

Trimming horn from Rhino is also worthless as the kill the animal and take the stump.

 

[Neo Dutch]

Kenya did a public burning of tons of ivory, at the same time allows "sport" hunters to kill an elephant, if a very large fee is paid to help the parks.

Please correct my thinking in this complicated story?

Rod

Kenya has not allowed any legal hunting for over 35 years.

 

[diandwill]

So, Dutch. What do you recommend? If trimming and dying don't/won't work, is there an alternative to drones hunting the poachers?

 

[Neo Dutch]

Conservation hunting is part of the answer. Brings heaps of money into the countries and means there is people on the ground through out the areas.

 

[Ed Westerly]

I'm with Neo Dutch. In the areas where they allow hunting, the people themselves keep the poachers out, as they have an economic interest in the animals. Where hunting is illegal, the people have no incentive to keep the poachers out, so they don't try. When outside interests to bankroll control efforts, you end up spending tremendous amounts of money for negligible results. IMHO