Anti-Ivory Groups Take Aim at WA, IA & CA (Mammoth Included) + Fed Update

[timberweasel]

It is sad. How is chopping their remains into $500 knife handles honoring those deaths?

It doesn't. I reckon I wasn't very articulate in my point which is simply: what a waste to end in nothing but ashes.

 

[Vernal2014]

I think anyone with an Elephant ivory product should feel ashamed of themselves. Purchasing elephant ivory, whether new or old, increases the demand and thus the price. Higher prices increase the incentive for poachers to kill more elephants.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Elephants didn't become endangered because of events since 1977. This isn't just about science or messages: The majority of all ivory out there has significantly contributed to the devastation we have today. Maybe it is time to stop admiring the fruits of this slaughter?

Like slave plantation riches and concentration camp medical research, a lot of us don't feel that ivory should have ANY intrinsic value.

De-valuing billions is ivory means that the market value of ivory is about to take a nose dive. Awesome. It is time for the humans to grow up and stop seeing everything around them as nothing more than a crop to be harvested. Ivory has NEVER been a necessary construction material. Like dog fighting, it is something that people should recognize as sad and disgusting. Let it die.

You are missing the point, it cannot be demonstrated that banning the sale of ivory items in the US will save a single elephant, in fact one ETIS study showed that changing laws in the US (in 1989, the first big US ivory ban) did not have any effect on the population of elephants in Africa. People in African and China really don't care if we ban the use of pre-act, legal ivory here. It will not save any elephants.

I think it's a dangerous thing for elephants if everyone in the US thinks that all we to do to save elephants is ban the use of Pre-act, legal ivory here, because it will not save elephants. At the end of the day, if that is all we do, we will have no elephants. We should all be fighting the poaching where it occurs, you are wasting your time, energy and money doing other things. The fact of the matter is, if you make ivory more rare, you make it more valuable, and then more people are willing to do some more appalling things to get it. It's rule of supply and demand, you can't change it.

 

[RX-79G]

You are missing the point, it cannot be demonstrated that banning the sale of ivory items in the US will save a single elephant, in fact one ETIS study showed that changing laws in the US (in 1989, the first big US ivory ban) did not have any effect on the population of elephants in Africa. People in African and China really don't care if we ban the use of pre-act, legal ivory here. It will not save any elephants.

I think it's a dangerous thing for elephants if everyone in the US thinks that all we to do to save elephants is ban the use of Pre-act, legal ivory here, because it will not save elephants. At the end of the day, if that is all we do, we will have no elephants. We should all be fighting the poaching where it occurs, you are wasting your time, energy and money doing other things. The fact of the matter is, if you make ivory more rare, you make it more valuable, and then more people are willing to do some more appalling things to get it. It's rule of supply and demand, you can't change it.

I think you are missing my two points:

1. If any ivory has value, all ivory has value. The value creates demand. If Westerners decide ivory is tacky because of its sordid origin, the Chinese will also start to see it that way, too. Foot binding and slavery also went away when the most civilized societies declared them disgusting.

2. Ivory is a bit like child pornography. It should never have been okay. If the photograph was 100 years old, does that make it okay to own?

 

[Mark Knapp]

I think anyone with an Elephant ivory product should feel ashamed of themselves. Purchasing elephant ivory, whether new or old, increases the demand and thus the price. Higher prices increase the incentive for poachers to kill more elephants.

You have missed the point, this is about banning the sale of any ivory product. It includes billions of dollars worth of private belongings. Musical instruments, antiques and family heirlooms. And again, it will not save elephants. We are talking about people in China buying poached ivory from Africa. You statement is very simplistic, it's much more complicated than that. Purchasing ivory does not increase the demand, the demand is there.

You are not going to change the minds of over a billion people in China by changing the laws in the US.

When you decrease the supply, you increase the value. So by removing the use of alternative sources of ivory you increase the value of it. It's like gravity, you can't buck it, you can try, but in the end, gravity wins. When the value goes up because the supply diminishes more people do stupid things.

 

[Mark Knapp]

I think you are missing my two points:

1. If any ivory has value, all ivory has value. The value creates demand. If Westerners decide ivory is tacky because of its sordid origin, the Chinese will also start to see it that way, too. Foot binding and slavery also went away when the most civilized societies declared them disgusting.

2. Ivory is a bit like child pornography. It should never have been okay. If the photograph was 100 years old, does that make it okay to own?

You cannot change that ivory has value, people value gold, diamonds, and ivory among other things, it's just a fact. It is valuable because it is rare. If you make it more rare, it's value goes up. If the value goes up, more people will do stupid things to get it.

Again, this has nothing to do with westerners, the ivory is going from Africa to China. The Chinese has proven that they don't care what Americans think. Do you think that things like foot binding and slavery are gone?

 

[RX-79G]

You have missed the point, this is about banning the sale of any ivory product. It includes billions of dollars worth of private belongings. Musical instruments, antiques and family heirlooms. And again, it will not save elephants. We are talking about people in China buying poached ivory from Africa. You statement is very simplistic, it's much more complicated than that. Purchasing ivory does not increase the demand, the demand is there.

You are not going to change the minds of over a billion people in China by changing the laws in the US.

When you decrease the supply, you increase the value. So by removing the use of alternative sources of ivory you increase the value of it. It's like gravity, you can't buck it, you can try, but in the end, gravity wins. When the value goes up because the supply diminishes more people do stupid things.

This is an argument that societies have never bettered themselves by restricting or banning harmful practices and materials. They have. And the impact of doing so has a global influence.

You might lose $500 in value because your dead elephant parts are off market? Was this really your retirement strategy? Should I feel worse for your or someone who invested in the asbestos industry before anyone knew it made people sick? At least asbestos didn't involve extinctions and was actually useful.

Ivory is like buying stolen goods. You might lose some money, but you shouldn't have ever had the stuff in the first place.

All the people who have "invested" in ivory that are alive today know where ivory comes from, and yet the stuff still appealed to them. Bizarre. There are lots of rocks that are pretty to look at and invest in. No deaths necessary.

 

[Mark Knapp]

This is the same logic as defoliating South America because Americans can't stop shoving cocaine up their noses.

You have to stop supply AND demand.



If the best soap you could buy was made of human fat, would that be okay as long as it was made before 1945?

The studies have shown that Americans are not using the ivory from elephants poached in Africa so your argument has no merit. The demand is not here in the US.

What these bans are trying to do is ban the use of ivory from other species and ivory brought to the US before it was illegal to bring it here. If you think that's a good thing then you and I don't need to talk about it any longer. Now if you really want to help stop the poaching of elephants in Africa, then we can talk.

 

[RX-79G]

You cannot change that ivory has value, people value gold, diamonds, and ivory among other things, it's just a fact. It is valuable because it is rare. If you make it more rare, it's value goes up. If the value goes up, more people will do stupid things to get it.

Again, this has nothing to do with westerners, the ivory is going from Africa to China. The Chinese has proven that they don't care what Americans think. Do you think that things like foot binding and slavery are gone?

You think there is a lot of foot binding going on? How about bear baiting and seal clubbing? Whaling?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-102-woman-bound-feet-toes-broken-just-2.html

The Chinese are more like Americans today than any point in their history. Ivory is just a trend, and it can be put to bed like any other.



Your kind of logic is that same as people who don't understand why the US exports petroleum but our gas prices are affected by OPEC. All markets are global. If your 1975 ivory is on Ebay for a price, that price is going to influence anywhere else that buys and sells ivory.

Why is this stuff so important to you?

 

[Mark Knapp]

This is an argument that societies have never bettered themselves by restricting or banning harmful practices and materials. They have. And the impact of doing so has a global influence.

You might lose $500 in value because your dead elephant parts are off market? Was this really your retirement strategy? Should I feel worse for your or someone who invested in the asbestos industry before anyone knew it made people sick? At least asbestos didn't involve extinctions and was actually useful.

Ivory is like buying stolen goods. You might lose some money, but you shouldn't have ever had the stuff in the first place.

All the people who have "invested" in ivory that are alive today know where ivory comes from, and yet the stuff still appealed to them. Bizarre. There are lots of rocks that are pretty to look at and invest in. No deaths necessary.

We are talking about millions of law abiding Americans with billions of dollars worth of belongings. If those people don't matter to you then I guess we don't have anything else to talk about. If I thought it would save a single elephant I would be for it.

Have you never heard of "blood diamonds" Should we ban the sale of all diamonds because some of them were gotten through conflict.

I say attack the problem where it occurs, catch and prosecute poachers and smugglers, we can help with that. If my neighbor had a fire on his kitchen stove, why would I throw water on my kitchen stove?

 

[crom]

When it no longer has any value, because people have abandoned this resource, will the destruction of a species stop. Good thing bear nuts don't make good knife scale material because then we'd be discussing fossilized bear nuts VS freshly poached ones.

 

[RX-79G]

We are talking about millions of law abiding Americans with billions of dollars worth of belongings. If those people don't matter to you then I guess we don't have anything else to talk about. If I thought it would save a single elephant I would be for it.

Have you never heard of "blood diamonds" Should we ban the sale of all diamonds because some of them were gotten through conflict.

I say attack the problem where it occurs, catch and prosecute poachers and smugglers, we can help with that. If my neighbor had a fire on his kitchen stove, why would I throw water on my kitchen stove?

How many elephants died to make your stove?

Blood diamonds are a good example, because more people are buying Canadian diamonds to avoid any influence on African diamond prices. Should all diamonds be banned? If it had the long term affect of saving a huge group of people - of course. At least the decorative ones that similarly serve no purpose but look pretty and have artificially bloated market prices.


You don't think Western countries banning ivory can save a single elephant because the Shakira listening, hamburger eating, BMW driving, English speaking capitalist Chinese are beyond Western influence? Why, you wouldn't happen to be an ivory owner would you?

 

[Mark Knapp]

You think there is a lot of foot binding going on? How about bear baiting and seal clubbing? Whaling?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-102-woman-bound-feet-toes-broken-just-2.html

The Chinese are more like Americans today than any point in their history. Ivory is just a trend, and it can be put to bed like any other.



Your kind of logic is that same as people who don't understand why the US exports petroleum but our gas prices are affected by OPEC. All markets are global. If your 1975 ivory is on Ebay for a price, that price is going to influence anywhere else that buys and sells ivory.

Why is this stuff so important to you?

This stuff is important to me because it is the first time that a government will assume I am guilty until I prove I am innocent. It is the first time that the government can tell me what I can and can't do with my personal belongings. It's important to me because it is an attack on the fifth amendment that says the government cannot take things from me without due process. Because the beginnings of this are proving to be troubling for many people. People in New York have already had things that were legal last year confiscated and they have been fined thousands of dollars. These are people like you and me at an antique show, not ivory smugglers and poachers.

It's important to me because virtually every antique store in the US will lose some of its inventory. Everyone with a piano will either have to prove what the keys are made of, where and when the ivory came from or loose the value of the piano, or any musical instrument with ivory on it, and for that matter any item with ivory on it.

It's important to me because in Alaska where I live, the great majority of people in coastal villages get a large percentage of there livelihoods from the ivory they harvest or dig up. These people have very little other avenues for cash income.

I use ivory on some of the knives that I make and I make a small part of my living selling ancient ivory (ancient walrus and mammoth) to other knife makers, I can do other things if I need to.

It's important to me because the experts agree that a ban in the US will not slow the killing of elephants in Africa. The proponents of these bans say that we need these bans to send a message to the rest of the world. The rest of the world is not listening. The Chinese and Africans don't care what we have to say.

But most of all, it's important to me because this whole discussion of the ban nationwide is just a distraction from really doing something to help save elephants. We in the US, from the President on down are wasting our time, energy and money arguing about a ban that has little chance of saving a single elephant. We can do better.

 

[Mark Knapp]

How many elephants died to make your stove?

Blood diamonds are a good example, because more people are buying Canadian diamonds to avoid any influence on African diamond prices. Should all diamonds be banned? If it had the long term affect of saving a huge group of people - of course. At least the decorative ones that similarly serve no purpose but look pretty and have artificially bloated market prices.


You don't think Western countries banning ivory can save a single elephant because the Shakira listening, hamburger eating, BMW driving, English speaking capitalist Chinese are beyond Western influence? Why, you wouldn't happen to be an ivory owner would you?

Elephants or no elephants, throwing water on my stove is not going to put the fire out on his stove.

I have some ivory, I make knives with ancient ivory. I sell ancient ivory to other knife makers and I even own a two pound piece of pre-act Asian elephant ivory. If you make me burn it all today, it will not save any elephants in Africa, it has nothing to do with the elephants in Africa.

The U.S. crushed it whole 20 year stockpile of ivory a couple of years ago, the poaching of elephants in Africa did not stop. In 1989 the U.S. banned the import of new ivory from Africa and the poaching did not stop. Since 2008 the studies show and the experts all agree that the importation of poached elephant ivory was virtually none and the poaching did not stop. Why do you think that further restricting what I, and millions of law abiding American, can do with our ancient and pre-act ivory will have any affect on poaching in Africa?

 

[Mark Knapp]

How many elephants died to make your stove?

Blood diamonds are a good example, because more people are buying Canadian diamonds to avoid any influence on African diamond prices. Should all diamonds be banned? If it had the long term affect of saving a huge group of people - of course. At least the decorative ones that similarly serve no purpose but look pretty and have artificially bloated market prices.


You don't think Western countries banning ivory can save a single elephant because the Shakira listening, hamburger eating, BMW driving, English speaking capitalist Chinese are beyond Western influence? Why, you wouldn't happen to be an ivory owner would you?

The world market value of diamonds did not go down when westerners became aware of "blood diamonds", it made the people that bought "conflict free" diamonds feel better but it did not stop the "conflict". Some people in the U.S. will feel better about the poaching problem in Africa if we totally ban the use of all legal ivory in the U.S. It will make them feel like they have done something. In fact, they have done nothing, given up nothing.

You are not willing to do much if all you want to do is take away the use of legal ivory from those that do use it.

 

[Twindog]

Twin Dog, Most of what you say here is not true, not even close. Science, and statistics prove otherwise. I am sure your heart is in the right place but you have been fed some very bad information. The studies by ETIS (Elephant Trade Information System) set up by CITES proves otherwise. They show that from the years 2008 to 2013 the amount of illicit ivory coming to the US is statistically insignificant. What comes here is by unknowing tourists to other countries bringing jewelry back, but the amount is so small they fall out of the lowest category in the study. The study shows that out of 98 countries studied the U.S. is the world leader in fighting the trafficking of illicit ivory.

I urge you to look up the studies so that you can talk more knowledgeably about this subject, try not to get your information from one place.

The ETIS, set up by CITES, counts only the ivory it finds, which is a tiny, tiny amount of the overall trade in illegal ivory. Poachers do not register their ivory with ETIS. Most of that ivory goes to China to make trinkets or products that come back to the US. CITES has given China "Approved Buyer" status, which shows that CITES is a corrupt organization heavily influenced by the business people it supposedly regulates. Saying China is a responsible buyer of ivory is like saying the Japanese whaling fleet is really doing nothing more than scientific research. (And, speaking of Japan, more than 100,000 pounds of illegal ivory was recently seized there.)

We also know, and I've posted links, that tons of illegal ivory are seized in the US, despite an enforcement effort that is almost helpless. The tons of illegal ivory seized in the US are the tip of the iceberg, and those seizures don't even count all the illegal ivory that cannot be proven illegal without expensive, destructive testing.

The truth is that elephants are being slaughtered at a horrendous rate. If the slaughter is not stopped, we'll lose elephants in the wild. And a huge percentage of that illegal ivory is going to consuming nations, including the United States.

 

[RX-79G]

I acknowledge the futility of attempting to get someone in the ivory industry to believe that the US has any influence on the world market.

But I will point out that you became an ivory investor after it was already well known what was happening to elephant populations and the legislation had already began. That's what investment risk is - taking a bet that you might lose.

I can see why this makes you unhappy, just as I can see why the South seceded from US. I'm just not terribly sympathetic about either.

 

[Elefantener]

The naivety of these front groups stretches from (-∞,∞ they are thieves who WILL punish you for your insolence to their ideology. They will abuse a perverted system to achieve their satanic goal as theives; don't you know they don't care about the elephants, only their appeasing their puppet master, The Devil. It is RIGHTEOUS to be against pouching, because it is a form of thievery, but to PUNISH others because of their likeness of a material that is often stolen in a foreign land, nor is stolen? How is this just? It is not, It is thievery displaying an uncaring and unconcerned attitude to your brother and sisters. It often seems these false "environmentalists" worship the environment as a pagan deity that should be held higher than MAN. IT WAS WRITTEN "Bring forth fruit, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven, and over every beast that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28 I hope these false "environmentalists" will repent and apologize to the owners, they must make good on their sin and remove all laws of the kind.

 

[Mark Knapp]

The ETIS, set up by CITES, counts only the ivory it finds, which is a tiny, tiny amount of the overall trade in illegal ivory. Poachers do not register their ivory with ETIS. Most of that ivory goes to China to make trinkets or products that come back to the US. CITES has given China "Approved Buyer" status, which shows that CITES is a corrupt organization heavily influenced by the business people it supposedly regulates. Saying China is a responsible buyer of ivory is like saying the Japanese whaling fleet is really doing nothing more than scientific research. (And, speaking of Japan, more than 100,000 pounds of illegal ivory was recently seized there.)

We also know, and I've posted links, that tons of illegal ivory are seized in the US, despite an enforcement effort that is almost helpless. The tons of illegal ivory seized in the US are the tip of the iceberg, and those seizures don't even count all the illegal ivory that cannot be proven illegal without expensive, destructive testing.

The truth is that elephants are being slaughtered at a horrendous rate. If the slaughter is not stopped, we'll lose elephants in the wild. And a huge percentage of that illegal ivory is going to consuming nations, including the United States.

You are either misinformed, misguided or are intentionally being misleading. The ETIS studies show that the U.S. is the world leader in the fight against illicit ivory by far.

 

[Mark Knapp]

I acknowledge the futility of attempting to get someone in the ivory industry to believe that the US has any influence on the world market.

But I will point out that you became an ivory investor after it was already well known what was happening to elephant populations and the legislation had already began. That's what investment risk is - taking a bet that you might lose.

I can see why this makes you unhappy, just as I can see why the South seceded from US. I'm just not terribly sympathetic about either.

So you would argue that an owner of ivory does not have a voice in the issue. Only those that do not own any and those that don't want to should have a say.

I am not an invester in poached African ivory, it's your willingness to lump all ivory together that is the problem.