Federal ban on ivory

Tom Lewis

Tom Lewis

Joined
Feb 24, 2000
Messages
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WWW.Blademag.com reports on new Federal Regulations concerning ivory. Anyone who uses ivory ought to read this. Personally I don't use ivory, it cracks.
But this is just one more case of the Feds. making impossible regulations.
 
I have read this and similar notices posted on other sites. I have yet to see anything but comments from readers about making ivory illegal. It is about banning and enforcing trafficking in illegal ivory....which I am all for.

I have seen no federal documents in reference to banning all ivory. The current laws allow the possession and use of pre-ban ivory, except in one or two states like California.
Additionally, that document is a task force mission statement. They are always broad and filled with "We will do this, and, We will do that" statements. When it comes to passing a law or getting federal regulations imposed, it is a far different matter.

Just to show how far this gets taken in an attempt to demonize someone or some party, and to raise up voters, I received an email a while back ( just before the last election) stating that , "Obama and the Democrats have issued an order for all ivory to be confiscated and destroyed. They will be serving search warrants to all persons who have posted about ivory, and Obama's Gestapo will be raiding all businesses that sell ivory and ivory products........"
It went downhill from there with anti-Obama and anti-Democrat talk of a severely political nature. It recommended I call my representatives and also vote Republican in the upcoming election.
I probably deleted it, but will look for it later to see if I filed it.

The obvious reaction to any info like this is to make sure ALL your paperwork is in order on any ivory you have. Calling or writing your representatives is also always a good idea.

I will be watching this situation with care, but do not see the need for panic at this point.
 
I have lately come to utterly distrust anything that takes the tone of pure politics. The sound of hysteria is harsh to my ears, and has lately been the only sound coming from DC and their puppets. Tiresome to say the least. Maybe it's just my faulty memory, but I recall a time when political discourse was more civilized.
 
Seems to all be about elephant ivory. I didn't ready anything there that suggests any other type of ivory was impacted. Did I miss something?
 
At this point, all talk is about African Elephant ivory. There is no current plan to change the laws on other ivories (none that I know about). However, things often snowball out of control in out current government, and unintended things get affected that were never part of the discussion.

My biggest concern would be changing the rules on the legal date when African ivory was brought into the country. Currently it is 1989 or older. Changing that suddenly to 100 years old would be hard for almost anyone to comply with. I doubt it could be done without a lot of problems, and such a regulation would not likely get out of committee. My take would be that any ivory legal before the new regulations would have to be grandfathered, as that is the standard in law. How they would establish that could ne a bureaucratic nightmare.

The suggested new regulations would govern interstate commerce and transportation of ivory, not private possession or in-state sales. State laws may change in some places, but I doubt there will be a big rush to do that.
CA and NY have already made stricter regulations.

My real worry is the state of the current congress. Everyone is so scared of their next election that people will vote YES on things they do not agree with. A vote NO on a military spending bill or an Ivory ban bill will almost surely lead to PAC adds saying, " Joe Politician voted to take food out of our servicemen's babies mouths and send the soldiers into battle with no ammo." or " Joe P. voted in favor of killing all the elephants in Africa....and Bambi is next."
 
I just hope the legislators don't share my wife's notion that mammoth ivory represents a non-renewable resource that should be protected. ;)
 
Here is the current ivory ban FAQ on the Fish and Wildlife Service website: http://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-questions-and-answers.html . Under the section for ivory carvers, it states that mammoth and walrus ivory, among others, aren't affected. Elsewhere, it says that ivory "legally acquired will remain legal" for personal possession. I suspect this will become a major issue for those with ivory obtained before certifying paperwork was necessary. How would the age be determined for an item without a manufacturing date or some sort of provenance? The FWS even says that the difficulty in differentiating between legal and illegal ivory is a main justification for the ban.
These actions may have the intended effect but I doubt they will have the stated one of reducing the problem of poaching.
 
In a practical sense (and greatly simplified) these proposed regulations are designed to target all elephant ivory that is undocumented -- including that imported before ivory was regulated in any way.

That includes antique Bowie knives, old Liles, Randalls, Morans etc., old Martin guitars, Steinway pianos, etc. You can own them, but you can't sell them so they theoretically have no value unless you strip all the ivory off of them and replace it with something else. Furthermore, their owners will not want to have them photographed or displayed because it creates a record of ownership. If you've heard about the current Bowie knife exhibit in Arkansas, imagine it without any ivory handled knives in it.

Don't think this doesn't affect you as a knifemaker, even if you've never used elephant ivory. For one, the burden of proof is on you -- if you handle a knife in interior fossil ivory that looks like elephant, they can seize it, and everything else you have for sale, and you, and haul you off in cuffs -- if you can't prove it's fossil. Furthermore, if collectors are losing thousands and thousands of dollars in their past knife "investments" because of these reg's, how eager are they going to be to keep coming back to that well? Don't forget where the money for handmade knives is coming from...

This link has already been posted in another thread, but I encourage you to read the article from the new Knife World which is posted there -- it provides a comprehensive overview of the current situation. April Knife World article on ivory ban.

Anybody out there want to see the ivory stripped off of those beautiful old knives and musical instruments, so their owners can recoup a portion of their investments? Or worse yet, have them seized and destroyed in a crusher like they did last year?

Mark Zalesky
Editor
Knife World magazine
 
Brett Bennett said:
I doubt they will have the stated one of reducing the problem of poaching.
Click to expand...

it will have zero effect on poachers. The only way to stop poachers would be farm raising elephants for market. Running around nature preserves sweeping up the poached corpses of dwindling herds only leads to extinction.
 
Bladsmith nailed it: It's quite likely that one tribal faction will decide that a ban will make certain voters look kindly on another tribal faction, so chances are that if it has to go through the federal congressional houses, it'll get stuck in committee, regardless of the merits or lack thereof of the proposal.

I haven't seen any restrictions on owning or giving, only selling.
Meanwhile, there's a move in China to drastically limit sales and imports- that'll be interesting, since that's the market for poached ivory at this time.
They have the ability to pass and enforce laws like that, though bigshots will probably be able to ignore the restrictions.
 
Mark d. Nailed it. It is only going to hurt the collectors when their priceless investments drop to zero value over night. If you haven't noticed this administration is all about stripping anything of worth from hard working law abiding folks and empowering the entitlement system. Get people dependent on the government and break those who are successful and refuse to be government dependent.
 
Ct find the post I read yesterday and thought over and wrote a reply to! But the subject is here- the ivory trade - folks wanting to see some numbers, how much legal stuff is around and such.

I have some opinions and comments on the subject of the ivory trade. I was a supplier here on the forum and got arrested, went to prison , recently got out, and am now a felon. I cant vote, sell any animal products ever again, cant own a gun etc etc. My next book will have the details. But in my notes I pull out…. “Crushing Illegal Ivory Trade” from the Wall Street Journal Nov 15th 2013. With a subheading of “In move to combat elephant poaching , U.S. destroys six tons of ‘White gold’ “
There is an attempt to toss some numbers out at us. With a comment “meanwhile illegal trade that year was at it’s highest level in more than a decade.” Illegal trade is based on what? Arrests? I know in my case the headlines in the news was “900 pounds of illegal animal parts seized” mentioning only “lion claws and elephant ivory”. Another big poaching ring busted in operation White Wash.
In truth I knew a year in advance my ‘animal parts of all kinds- including legal’ was to be confiscated. “Whatever is on your property at the time we show up will be confiscate” Does it make sense I’d leave 900 pounds of anything worth anything on my property? I had 2 freezers I pulled the plug on and let ‘them’ confiscate rotten maggoty skulls I acquired from trappers with bullet blown heads. Moose bones off my dinner, torn unwanted hides – basically material not worth hauling to the dump and thanks for doing that for me. The 900 pounds was correct. ‘They wore masks and wore zute suits (I took pictures) and said they were taking it to the nearest dump. I’m guessing from the news, the 900 pounds got reported in the statistics as ‘elephant ivory’. I may have had an ounce or two, well under a pound, of preban with paperwork. ‘Lion claws ’ was huge legal lynx. Among confiscations was my pet cats toy made of fur.
I’m not totally innocent! I was out there at the edge. I played with dying stabilizing rotten mammoth ivory, tossed in some white walrus to see what it would look like. Not very bright I suppose, in hindsight. But there was no plea bargain. It was an ultimatum. Plead guilty to 5 times the truth and get 6 months in jail, or fight this, and if you loose on any one of 28 counts go to jail for 30 years. That was pretty much a no brainer. I did in fact sell a $5 wolf claw and send it overseas and had not properly renewed my $100 permit that had expired by 2 months. That alone is a felony worth 10 years in prison. Who knew that? I did get talked out of a single white walrus tusk that had been gifted to me legally by a native. I could have it, but not sell it. One of my regular customers was working undercover and spent 3 days talking me out of it with a sob story. Rats. The tusk was tagged, in the system, and the true crime was not being an Indian, though being subsistence with a subsistence permit. I assumed a minor offense. Not like a poached item. But it ends up being ‘numbers’ It’s all about the numbers. I know for a fact the numbers are off by at least 900 pounds.
So the bottom line is, would I trust numbers the government gave me, trust the news media, and trust arguments given are based on sound management? Much is politically motivated, and in my opinion has little to do with saving the environment. I have a lot of information and experience to base my opinion on.
I was told more the once by Federal agents, the lawyer, the judge. “There is no such thing as legal ivory. Not any. Not fossil, not mammoth, not native owned. All ivory to us is like heroin to the drug agency” So while some dealers are glad one of their competitors is put out of business (99.9% the mammoth ivory trade) and was giving the legal trade a bad name etc. I only sigh, and see a bigger picture as we all go down one at a time and not really sticking together . Divided and conquer. It works.
I know one of the biggest antler dealers in the state who told me the Feds asked him if he could prove none of his antler came off Federal land. The implication being , that would be illegal. With the truth being, how would one prove, in truckloads of antler where it all came from? As it trickles down to the knife maker and the knife owner, the burden of proof is on us. I know I come across as bias and defensive and not taking responsibility etc, but I truly care about others, the world in general, our government, our country. I do not want to get too deep in all this. I kind of have to back off and mind my own business and walk away. But thought I’d toss in a comment from a different perspective.
 
There is starting to be some misinformation showing up in this thread. Just a couple of things, if the ban is passed as written, it will have far reaching effects. First it puts the onus on the owner of the ivory to prove it is legal. It also makes all elephant ivory illegal to sell unless you can prove with federal documents that it meets certain, very hard to reach, criteria. It makes interstate sales illegal even if you can prove it is pre-ban. There are no provisions for "grandfather rights" in the strategy as written. It could spill over into other kinds of ivory, there is some talk of you having to prove questionable ivory is not elephant ivory with DNA analysis.

If you care about this stuff, please get educated about it, it is covered pretty thoroughly in this thread (500 posts)

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1153595-New-US-Ban-on-Sale-of-Elephant-Ivory

Get involved, we have sample letters there that you can use to send to your representatives. They (the presidents council) is formulating the next set of regulations right now, they are due out in April, then there will be a 30 comment period. We will have to live with the directives that come down so we need to use the system to make it something that we can live with.
 
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