Would 10 feet of fence protect a game reserve on its own?
A national ban is the first of many bans and attitude change that can help save African elephants from extinction.
Anti-Ivory Groups Take Aim at WA, IA & CA (Mammoth Included) + Fed Update
- Thread starter Critter
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Would 10 feet of fence protect a game reserve on its own?
A national ban is the first of many bans and attitude change that can help save African elephants from extinction.
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from what little i know about all this it seems the issue with allowing pre-77 ivory is how to tell if a trinket or knife grip is pre-77
i think it should be on the manufacturers and sellers to prove that is pre-77
i will NEVER buy ivory even if it is labeled as mammoth or pre-77 since i have no way of telling the difference
i think it should be on the manufacturers and sellers to prove that is pre-77
i will NEVER buy ivory even if it is labeled as mammoth or pre-77 since i have no way of telling the difference
egally08
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I never said it would. I do understand your point, it's just my opinion that the logic is flawed.
From my understanding, the logic behind the ban is to decrease demand, therefore decreasing supply. That sounds reasonable on it's face, however it doesn't work like that. The level of demand really has no bearing on the level of supply in this case(to a large extent). The majority of poachers are local Africans trying to feed their starving families. Just because demand goes down, does not mean their families aren't starving anymore.
When supply is greater than demand, the value of the product decreases. These starving farmers will only receive less money for the same amount of ivory. In reality, this could have an adverse reaction, causing an increase in poached ivory since they will need to kill more elephants to receive the same amount of money as they did before.
Remember, this case is unique since there is an ulterior force driving the supply- Which is survival/starving, not just monetary like most markets. That's why (in my opinion) the "decrease demand = decreased supply" argument doesn't apply.
What do you think?
I think poaching AND smuggling are high risk behaviors, and if the margins go down low enough to pay everyone in the supply chain for their risk and trouble, the poachers and smugglers will find things to do that are more likely to feed their families for less time or trouble.
How much whale poaching goes on? Has anyone poached a blue whale since 1970? They were valuable enough that we hunted then poached nearly 400,000 of them, yet no one has poached one in 45 years.
You can change what is valuable through bans and political pressure.
It's but one of the tools in the tool box.
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Sir,
If you would look at Marks site at the bottom of his posts you would see that he deals in Ancient Mammoth Ivory. Not Modern African Elephant Ivory. This stuff is fossilized and 20-40.000 years old.
I just want to make sure you understand this important distinction?
egally08
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I agree that if ivory became so devalued, the poaching would cease. The only problem with that, is a ban won't accomplish that. Just for the sake of the argument, lets say a ban in the USA dropped world wide demand by 50% (which of course it wouldn't, IMO it'd be more like 2%) - There would still be enough value for the poaching to continue. Even if ivory was banned in every country, there's still enough demand to continue the poaching, in my opinion.
This is where we differ. Poaching really isn't high risk for the locals. There's hardly any enforcement, and the elephants are literally in their back yard. How long do you think it would take someone to shoot an elephant, walk 100 yds, cut the ivory off and be gone? 10 minutes? I'm sure there are some poachers that don't even go looking. They just go on with their life, and when they see one, they take it. It's entirely too easy, and that is the sad truth.
Whaling is a bad example because of the time and risk involved. Going out and finding a whale, killing it, and than having to haul it back to a local port where there's always traffic is very risky. Not to mention the pure size of it is much harder to conceal than a couple of 5 ft long tusks, especially when your hut is only a stones throw away.
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The Japanese are POACHING whales in Antarctica as well speak!
The Bastards were told to stop by international courts and still continue with this BS about that they are collecting samples. They have large processing ships that cut them up and package the whale meat for sale in Japan.
http://time.com/43674/japanese-whaling-ban-wont-end-the-whale-wars/
That'd be fine if the tusks didn't have to go further than the hut, and that there was no chance of running into to any armed patrols that tend to shoot poachers on sight. But the tusks have to get from village to city, city to port to ship. Africa is screwed up, but it isn't complete anarchy.
Like whaling, the poaching will never go to zero. But like the blue whale, large populations could remain completely untouched while others will still suffer some losses, but not nearly at the current rate.
I think the gist of many of the arguments are really whether you think people and history can change for the better. There will always be a bunch of people that will cling to barbarism, but the world is substantially a better place than it was in the past. And that was because the spread of civilization through commerce, education and the rule of law. You have to really know nothing about how people used to live to not see that progress is normal.
And? And the slave trade/trafficking in humans is still strong too.
What do either have to do with a ban on the trade in ivory, elephant or otherwise?
Some here seem to communicate it's hopeless to even try to save the elephant, so why try. I'd hope (and I assume) your post above isn't intended to convey that.
egally08
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Heres a mammoth ivory carving. The cores are passed off as elephant ivory.[/URL][/IMG]
No, that was not passed off as elephant ivory. The website that sold the item clearly has it listed as mammoth ivory.
http://www.precious-mammoth.com/mammoth-carvings.htm
Which doesn't change the fact that it has exactly the same visual and market appeal as elephant ivory.
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That particular item wasn't, but many are.
egally08
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Than please don't post misinformation. It's an underhanded way to try and prove your point. I believe RX did the exact same thing earlier in the thread, that he has yet to address my comment on.
egally08
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Except that it is completely legal to own and sell.
I understand your point, and it does have merit, however using that logic, the next conclusion to draw would be the banning of any type of ivory substitute, or look a like.
Since it looks similar and it's hard to tell the difference it still garnishes desire and demand for real elephant ivory - That is the argument correct?
Yes. And it is another animal product from a close relative to the elephant. It is even called "ivory", because that's what it is.
You can make a ridiculous argument that we should also ban cream colored plastic and cow bone, but they aren't even close in appeal to the "other" ivory.
And the appeal of ivory is the root cause of all the problems - not African poverty or Chinese wealth. There is something about it that just seems magical to some people.
In recent years, ivory is causing the opposite reaction for a growing group of people.
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It's not misinformation. It's just illustrating the fact that mammoth tusk cores look exactly like elephant ivory and are being hocked as such. I find it misleading when mammoth tusk that has been frozen for thousands of years is classified as fossilized. Fossils are permeated with minerals which solidify in an object and transform it into a solid rock.
Well, sorry about that. I did a google image search for "mammoth ivory carving" and that one popped up. So I pasted it onto the thread to demonstrate that mammoth ivory core can look like elephant ivory.
If I had happened across the image Sosa posted there wouldn't be any "controversy", as it is what I was trying to find - a simply image to demonstrate the similarity.
But there was no dishonesty on my part. Just a poorly labeled web page.
I should have posted this image of a carving of an elephant out of mammoth tusk. It think it makes the point nicely.
Is this real mammoth and not poached elephant? Probably. But could you brag to your friends that it is elephant? Sure, it has nearly the same look and appeal.
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egally08
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It is a ridiculous argument, and I'm not making it at all. I'm just pointing out that the reasoning is similar, yet one is fine, and the other is ridiculous, as you say.
I agree, the appeal is what makes it have value. There's no legislation that can remove that appeal, so there's no real way to ever completely devalue it. Value = demand = poaching and we go round and round.
I have no objection to the importation ban of ivory. If you already own it, and it is here, it should be a free market. I also do not believe that mammoth should fall under these same sanctions.
To address the loophole that it could create, you could easily make a register for preowned and existing ivory that's in the USA already. It's not as massive as a task as you would think. I could create a website tomorrow that would allow the end user to take a couple of pictures and write a description and submit it online, and receive an ID number. - Advertise this method, leave it open for a year or so, and than close it down.