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

[stabman]

You give your wife one side of the argument, without telling her the whole story, and then you hide behind her opinion. Give her the full truth, in context, and then see what she says.

I didn't "give" her anything.
I asked her opinion on a matter, based on what she knows from being alive on this planet as long as I have.

Wives are not pets to be fed bits of info by "enlightened" husbands.
They're autonomous human beings...or did you not know that?

And for the record, I respect her opinion on all matters far more than anyone in this thread, or on this entire forum, and that includes the people who agree with me.

 

[RedLynx]

Alright thanks, that relates directly to the ivory thing, I wasn't sure. I haven't purchased an instrument likely to contain any in years, and I'm fairly certain the old piano my parents once had didn't have ivory keys, but I could be mistaken.

Personally I wouldn't classify use of ivory instruments as a form of "free speech", but perhaps I can't see that side of the equation as clearly as some.

A lot of instruments, especially antiques instruments, are made with ivory, and musicians are not able to travel abroad to play their music for fear that their instruments will be seized. Some of these musicians have been put in a tough position. Others want to use ivory for their instruments because they look at music as the way they express themselves, and they believe that the First Amendment protects their freedom of expression, even to the point of having a First Amendment right to use ivory to make instruments.

The NRA uses the same kind of argument, saying unless people can put ivory handles on their guns, they have lost their Second Amendment rights.

 

[Twindog]

Alright thanks, that relates directly to the ivory thing, I wasn't sure. I haven't purchased an instrument likely to contain any in years, and I'm fairly certain the old piano my parents once had didn't have ivory keys, but I could be mistaken.

Personally I wouldn't classify use of ivory instruments as a form of "free speech", but perhaps I can't see that side of the equation as clearly as some.

Here's a story that illustrates the dilemma of some musicians:

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/may/05/us-ban-ivory-spawns-dilemma-music-industry/

I'm sympathetic to many of these musicians, and the feds are working on ways to allow them to continue to use their favorite instruments -- with their unique sounds.

I think some knife makers and owners will also be hurt unnecessarily, and we need to find ways to address their legitimate concerns. But we need to make sure that the bans really do save elephants and are not used as excuses to continue to poach ivory. The problem is that there are many special-interest groups out there looking to exploit every possible loophole or create every possible loophole to ensure that the bans don't work. Sadly, the knife industry is taking the latter approach, as you can see in the tone of the OP.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Well I just said what many articles on the matter said

"So it’s good to see the U.S.—the second-biggest market for legal and illegal ivory after China— beginning to take the problem more seriously."
http://science.time.com/2014/02/11/us-bans-ivory-products/

"US Second to China in Illegal Ivory Trade"
http://www.newseveryday.com/articles/175/20140731/second-china-illegal-ivory-trade.htm

"the United States is the second-largest market for ivory in the world. Daniel Ashe, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the “unregulated domestic trade in elephant ivory has served as a loophole that gives cover for illegal trade.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/opinion/banning-ivory-sales-in-america.html?_r=0

"Although China is ranked as the top consumer of illegal ivory, the US is considered the second largest market in the world."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/africa-wild/2013/oct/02/us-illegal-ivory-trade-elephants

"The United States is the world’s second-largest market, behind China, for illegal wildlife artifacts."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...666c5a-934e-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html

So it is not like I made up that claim and you are dancing around that because you know it is said over and over again in articles all the time which can be confirmed easily.


So now Mark...What are the official reasons given as to the Ivory ban?

The first one says, "legal and illegal ivory" I am not disputing that.

I emailed journalists of the Washington Post and the LA times a long time ago and asked them where they got their information. I also talked to them on the phone. They both said they got it from the the USF&W website. On the USF&W website it says the same thing that your top quote says. So then I emailed the editors of both periodicals and told them that the articles in question had misquoted what was on the website, I asked them for a retraction. I got no response.

I am not disputing we are the second largest in the world in the consumption of ivory. That's probably true we are worlds largest consumer of just about every commodity. What I am disputing is that it is illegal ivory. Those reports are not correct, I have thoroughly checked it out.

Even the one you have that quotes Dan Ashe doesn't say it is illegal ivory. I am trying to tell you that there is a big difference between those articles and the scientific studies that I referenced.

You know yourself that those same periodicals will print some pretty untrue things about some types of knives and the use of them. I'm sure I could find dozens of articles that say things that you and I both know to be untrue about knives. Do you want me to? I'm sure it will be as easy as finding the ones you found.

Do you believe everything you read on the internet, of course not.

If you think that's dancing around, I don't know what to tell you.

I have made some pretty compelling arguments, at least one person on the pro ban side thinks so, and backed up what I say with scientific research. You have not.

I think you and I have reached an impasse and to continue further will be futile. I always learn a lot when I enter into these things and this time was no different.

I went to your website, you really make some nice stuff. I hope that knife laws don't change and make what you obviously love to do illegal. For a whole lot of people in the U.S. that's what's happening. From knife makers to gunsmiths, call makers, pool cue makers, musical instrument makers and pen turners, the list goes on. We love to work with traditional materials, ivory among them. Our lifestyles will be changed (to us, for no good reason, because nobody has been able to demonstrate that it will make a difference) and if nothing else is done about the poaching problem (and that's what seems to be the case) the world will lose elephant's too.

I wish you the very best but I do not wish to continue to talk around in circles with you any more, I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't see the point.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Let her hear the full story and see if she changes her mind. The knife industry and others have used the limited bans to cover its tracks to use blood ivory to make knife handles. There are no enforcement resources available -- and Doug Ritter and his group are fighting all ivory bans, limited or not -- for agents to tell non-elephant ivory from elephant ivory. And there are no enforcement resources available to tell pre-ban ivory from post-ban ivory. Many in the knife industry have used the limited ban to increase the use of poached blood ivory.

The knife industry could work with USFW to ensure enforcement agents have the resources available to distinguish non-elephant and pre-ban elephant ivory, but it won't. Doug Ritter has taken the same approach as the NRA, which is fighting all bans, limited or not, because any ban is a violation of the Second Amendment. Really, the NRA says if you can't have ivory handles on your 1911, you have lost your right to keep and bear arms.

Many musicians are fighting all bans, too, because it violates their First Amendment rights (freedom of expression).

Ritter starts these posts and then has his minions post misleading information in order to persuade knife owners that their rights are under attack.

Have your wife read USFW's experience with the pre-ban ivory legislation, which opened up the knife market for yet more poached blood ivory.

The reason people are pushing for a total ban is because the limited bans -- bans that didn't included pre-ban ivory or fossil ivory -- made elephants more likely to go extinct. If she still wants to block ivory bans, than you can stop saying she cares about elephants.

You first whole paragraph is so full of bull I can't even believe you said it. You really shouldn't say inflammatory things like that unless you can prove it

 

[Twindog]

I didn't "give" her anything.
I asked her opinion on a matter, based on what she knows from being alive on this planet as long as I have.

Wives are not pets to be fed bits of info by "enlightened" husbands.
They're autonomous human beings...or did you not know that?

And for the record, I respect her opinion on all matters far more than anyone in this thread, or on this entire forum, and that includes the people who agree with me.

From your description, your wife sounds like a wonderful person. But you gave her a push poll -- a question that leads to the answer you wanted. Ask your wife if she would support excluding fossil ivory in the ban if that exclusion would promote yet more illegal elephant poaching.

Personally, I would support an exclusion of fossil ivory IF we can create an enforcement mechanism that would ensure that the exclusion could not be used as a loophole for the killing of yet more elephants. We in the knife industry should be looking for ways to ensure that such exclusions are not counter productive.

 

[Twindog]

You first whole paragraph is so full of bull I can't even believe you said it. You really shouldn't say inflammatory things like that unless you can prove it

This is a position of USFW, based on its experience with the existing federal ban on illegal ivory. I've already posted that link.

 

[AVigil]

Mark,

No problem and thanks.

But you forgot to say what is the official stated reason for the ivory ban.

Just so to clarify.

 

[Mark Knapp]

This is a position of USFW, based on its experience with the existing federal ban on illegal ivory. I've already posted that link.

You said this, "Many in the knife industry have used the limited ban to increase the use of poached blood ivory." in fact you said it twice in the first paragraph. Prove it. I want you to show me an account of where one knife maker was caught using poached elephant ivory. I want his name, the case number, some kind of credible accounting. In fact, since you said "many" show me many. Who are these guys. I have been in the knife business and the ivory business for 15 years, it's news to me.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Mark,

No problem and thanks.

But you forgot to say what is the official stated reason for the ivory ban.

Just so to clarify.

I didn't forget to, I just don't see the point.

 

[Twindog]

You said this, "Many in the knife industry have used the limited ban to increase the use of poached blood ivory." in fact you said it twice in the first paragraph. Prove it. I want you to show me an account of where one knife maker was caught using poached elephant ivory. I want his name, the case number, some kind of credible accounting. In fact, since you said "many" show me many. Who are these guys. I have been in the knife business and the ivory business for 15 years, it's news to me.

Well, in one of Ritter's previous threads on this topic, he had an ivory trafficker post anti-ban propaganda. I went to that person's website, where the maker acknowledged using ivory without knowing whether it was post-ban or pre-ban ivory.

Then he had his lobbyist post that we just needed to let more rich Americans kill trophy elephants as a way to raise conservation money. That lobbyist didn't say, but on his own website you could see that he ran a safari business that would profit from the increased killing of elephants.

The truth is that USFW has found that the existing federal ban, with all its expulsions, is preventing the ban from helping elephants. The reason for the total ban is because the existing limited bans have not worked because special-interest groups have used those exclusions -- coupled with our limited enforcement resources -- to promote the continued use of illegal blood ivory.

In any case, game management often makes matters worse. Elephants are not dumb animals. They are intelligent, social animals that depend on mature leadership in the herd to survive -- to find resources and to defend against danger. Trophy hunters break down this leadership structure.

In Washington state, we're struggling with a controversy over allowing wolves to repopulate their traditional hunting grounds. Whenever a wolf kills a farm animal, the anti-wolf people go out and start killing wolves. A study out of Washington State University found that this strategy actually makes matters worse:

Rob Wielgus noticed something interesting when he studied reports of wolf attacks on sheep and cattle in the Northern Rockies.

Killing wolves to reduce livestock predation actually led to more dead sheep and cows the following year. The trend held true until more than 25 percent of a state’s wolf population was removed.

“It’s counterintuitive,” Wielgus, director of Washington State University’s Large Carnivore Conservation Lab, said of the study’s results. “People think, let’s kill the wolves and get rid of the problem. But it doesn’t work that way with carnivores. Sometimes, the punitive solution is causing the problem.”

http://www.conservationnw.org/news/...ills-increase-livestock-deaths-wsu-study-says

We've seen similar problems with hunting lions (cougars) here. We kill off all the adults, and what is left is mostly teenage lions who get into lots of trouble and make matters worse.

Every management tool we've tried with elephants has failed. We haven't tried a total ban. There are no other credible proposals on the table.

 

[AVigil]

I didn't forget to, I just don't see the point.

You do not see the point of clarifying what the official reasons are for the ivory ban?

OK

 

[RX-79G]

You have to realize though that people often mull over the same facts and ideas and come to conclusions diametrically opposed to yours.

You cannot assume that people will get on board with your position (on anything, ever), nor can you conclude that they are wrong or possess faulty reasoning skills because their conclusions don't match your own.

Nor did I expect her to.

I really don't get the anger from you. I was curious what she thought with some details, not expecting that she was going to side against you.

I might be adamantly arguing a position, but I'm not interested in insulting you, Mark or anyone else. I don't think you're stupid, immoral or anything else.

So it would be nice if people would lighten up. There is no need for the 'tudes.

 

[stabman]

Nor did I expect her to.

I really don't get the anger from you. I was curious what she thought with some details, not expecting that she was going to side against you.

I might be adamantly arguing a position, but I'm not interested in insulting you, Mark or anyone else. I don't think you're stupid, immoral or anything else.

So it would be nice if people would lighten up. There is no need for the 'tudes.

I didn't think I was being annoyed in the post you quoted.

In another post responding to a different poster I was rather annoyed, but not in the one you quoted.

 

[RX-79G]

Tell me where what I said was false and the convince me of it with some credible research.

What you said was basically "those favoring bans don't care to help/fund direct action in Africa."

Why is it my job to disprove your assertion?


But here you go>
http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/elephant
WWF donators tend to be the banning types, not the hunting or ivory collecting types. WWF has both direct action programs and works with Traffic. I donate to WWF.

Disproven.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Well, in one of Ritter's previous threads on this topic, he had an ivory trafficker post anti-ban propaganda. I went to that person's website, where the maker acknowledged using ivory without knowing whether it was post-ban or pre-ban ivory.

Then he had his lobbyist post that we just needed to let more rich Americans kill trophy elephants as a way to raise conservation money. That lobbyist didn't say, but on his own website you could see that he ran a safari business that would profit from the increased killing of elephants.

The truth is that USFW has found that the existing federal ban, with all its expulsions, is preventing the ban from helping elephants. The reason for the total ban is because the existing limited bans have not worked because special-interest groups have used those exclusions -- coupled with our limited enforcement resources -- to promote the continued use of illegal blood ivory.

In any case, game management often makes matters worse. Elephants are not dumb animals. They are intelligent, social animals that depend on mature leadership in the herd to survive -- to find resources and to defend against danger. Trophy hunters break down this leadership structure.

In Washington state, we're struggling with a controversy over allowing wolves to repopulate their traditional hunting grounds. Whenever a wolf kills a farm animal, the anti-wolf people go out and start killing wolves. A study out of Washington State University found that this strategy actually makes matters worse:

Rob Wielgus noticed something interesting when he studied reports of wolf attacks on sheep and cattle in the Northern Rockies.

Killing wolves to reduce livestock predation actually led to more dead sheep and cows the following year. The trend held true until more than 25 percent of a state’s wolf population was removed.

“It’s counterintuitive,” Wielgus, director of Washington State University’s Large Carnivore Conservation Lab, said of the study’s results. “People think, let’s kill the wolves and get rid of the problem. But it doesn’t work that way with carnivores. Sometimes, the punitive solution is causing the problem.”

http://www.conservationnw.org/news/...ills-increase-livestock-deaths-wsu-study-says

We've seen similar problems with hunting lions (cougars) here. We kill off all the adults, and what is left is mostly teenage lions who get into lots of trouble and make matters worse.

Every management tool we've tried with elephants has failed. We haven't tried a total ban. There are no other credible proposals on the table.

You said "The knife industry and others have used the limited bans to cover its tracks to use blood ivory to make knife handles." Then you said this "Many in the knife industry have used the limited ban to increase the use of poached blood ivory." None of what you just wrote justifies these two statement by you.

A responsible person would not say those things unless he had some real knowledge about people doing those things, IMHO. You can't just make this stuff up, you will get challenged on it. When you make things up, it casts doubt on everything else you say. People learn you don't have any credibility.

 

[Mark Knapp]

You do not see the point of clarifying what the official reasons are for the ivory ban?

OK

I don't see the point in going around and around with you, it leads to nothing constructive.

 

[Mark Knapp]

What you said was basically
Why is it my job to disprove your assertion?


But here you go>
http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/elephant
WWF donators tend to be the banning types, not the hunting or ivory collecting types. WWF has both direct action programs and works with Traffic. I donate to WWF.

Disproven.

I can't comment on something that you say I "basically said", give me a direct quote of something I said. Then prove me wrong.

I never said "those favoring bans don't care to help/fund direct action in Africa."
I said the people I have talked to on the ban side of this will not work with the people that use ivory. I also said, if half of us are trying to take the use of ivory away from the other half of us we will not be able to work together.

That's why I have decided to back away from you. It leads to nothing constructive.

 

[killgar]

After 5 days, 26 pages, and 518 posts, maybe at some point it's best to just agree to disagree.

At this point, I figure that everyone has fully explained and expressed their side of the matter. I seriously doubt that a few more pages, or posts, is going to convince anyone to change their mind.

Just my opinion. Feel free to ignore me. Just the opinion of someone who once participated in a discussion on this very same topic here on Bladeforums (I think that thread lasted 12 pages before we respectfully decided to agree to disagree).

 

[RX-79G]

I can't comment on something that you say I "basically said", give me a direct quote of something I said. Then prove me wrong.

I never said "those favoring bans don't care to help/fund direct action in Africa."
I said the people I have talked to on the ban side of this will not work with the people that use ivory. I also said, if half of us are trying to take the use of ivory away from the other half of us we will not be able to work together.

That's why I have decided to back away from you. It leads to nothing constructive.

I paraphrased you, because I already quoted you once. So I'll quote you again:

I asked a question earlier, and no-one addressed it except RedLynx.

Of the two choices that might help solve the poaching problem, one being initiate these bans that might help slow poaching. It's a matter of opinion as to weather or not it will, we have no evidence either way. They will cost a lot of money to enforce, and hurt a lot of good people that did nothing wrong.

Or we could encourage our legislators to provide funding to help guard elephants from poachers. Take all the money that would have been spent enforcing the bans, and use it to guard elephants. We know for a fact that guarding elephants works, it's working right now. We can also beef up security at our border if needed to make sure no new ivory get in. This approach hurts no-one.

Why are you people in favor of a ban more willing to do that than the latter?

To which I already replied:

Who ever said they supported the ban but not funding for Africa? Are they mutually exclusive?

I believe I previously mentioned that the best long term solution to ALL of Africa's problems was economic development.

Which you said wasn't a detailed enough response, then insisted that I disprove YOUR hypothesis that those in favor of the ban aren't more willing to do more. It's your idea, based on the notion that YOU have that people favoring bans can't favor both bans and action, based on the idea that there isn't enough money for both. But you didn't tell us what either costs, even though the anti-ban folks keep insisting that ivory trade ban enforcement is expensive.

So I still think the question (quoted above) is empty as it relies on assumptions that we don't all agree are true.

I don't know what that has to do with me. I quoted, you replied to your objections, then was told I needed to quote you again. It doesn't seem like I'm the problem.