New US Ban on Sale of Elephant Ivory

[elementfe]

Great to have perspective from those who have lived in Africa.
It would be grand if there was a way to move that legally harvested ivory without "feeding the beast." From my easy chair it just looks like as long as people are so eager to buy ivory at any cost to themselves and the elephants, doing anything to make that easier has a high cost itself.
Can anybody think of a model to work from, a resource that people are willing to preserve, protect, and ration out that has become stronger as time goes on?
If there's a precedent, perhaps we could let the legal system know that there is a way to sell a small amount of ivory without further hurting the remnants of the herds.
Telling the people who are motivated to help the elephants that hunting is the best path to preserve them "does not compute" (even though there's a lot of truth in it) and just makes for more resistance.

 

[David Bates]

Great insight from those who back up their opinions with evidence.

Well spoken Joe.

Look at the organizations and outfitters that promote the proper herd management and harvesting of elephants in Africa. Harvesting rogue elephants are examples of proper herd management in many concessions in Africa. Without the support of those big checks from the U.S. hunters/ organizations, research and other projects would not be possible.

IMO, Mr. Knapp is doing all of us a great service, by delving in deeper to the issue and working with proper authorities to have a better understanding of this ban. Like many others, whether professional or personal in nature, its ashame some choose to post their so called expert opinions based on their feelings instead of the facts.

I am in support of Mark, and like many others have posted previously, Thank you for what you are doing and I will support your efforts.

David

 

[Rhinoknives1]

Great to have perspective from those who have lived in Africa.
It would be grand if there was a way to move that legally harvested ivory without "feeding the beast." From my easy chair it just looks like as long as people are so eager to buy ivory at any cost to themselves and the elephants, doing anything to make that easier has a high cost itself.
Can anybody think of a model to work from, a resource that people are willing to preserve, protect, and ration out that has become stronger as time goes on?
If there's a precedent, perhaps we could let the legal system know that there is a way to sell a small amount of ivory without further hurting the remnants of the herds.
Telling the people who are motivated to help the elephants that hunting is the best path to preserve them "does not compute" (even though there's a lot of truth in it) and just makes for more resistance.

I use to agree with this hunting elephants was good for elephants but in the long run Photo Safaris and other economic means will be a better business model of livelyhood for the people in Africa..

 

[Rhinoknives1]

I have lived "on the ground." Not in ALL of the countries where poaching is a problem, but enough to have talked to local enforcement (in the local language!) and to understand some of the issues. I agree there should be zero tolerance for poaching, and I can pretty much guarantee that by "zero tolerance" I mean a lot more than you'd think; most poachers only understand death, and it's the only deterrent that works.

What has helped poaching in Kenya was ruthless enforcement by the police and military, which occurred because the government realized that they needed tourist dollars, which wouldn't come without elephants. This enforcement usually ends up with poachers dead. The ones who lived got the message and started robbing ships off the coast; almost all of the Kenyan (and a lot of Tanzanian) poachers are Somali. Your solution worked somewhat in Kenya (sort of, it was really backwards to what you said: the elephants died so people STOPPED coming), but only because there is more money for Kenya in live elephants than dead ones, and the government is willing to take extreme measures to see that it stays that way. This is in part because of the Somali thing: even if they're Kenyan Somalis, they're still largely seen as both foreigners and troublemakers, and it's easier for the government to deal with them precipitously as a result.

In Tanzania the government has a less will, and poaching is getting worse. In the case of TZ, the ivory is smuggled largely by Burundians. Remember the big genocide in Rwanda? When the bad folks were kicked out of Rwanda they kicked off civil wars in Burundi and the DRC. Hundreds of thousands of refugees went to Tanzania and stayed in HUGE camps for more than a decade. A lot of desperate people with connections to a lot of really bad people still in Burundi are largely responsible for ivory poaching and smuggling. THe elephants are killed by local people because none of the benefits of having live elephants around really accrue to them, and the tusks go out through the camps to Burundi and on to China or wherever. The Kenyan solution would work in Tanzania, but, again, the will is lacking. This is partly because the poachers are smart enough to stay away from where most of the tourists go, so even if most of the rest of the elephants are gone the money will still flow. It's also because the poachers are more often local, and the government doesn't want to be seen killing poor farmers.

There aren't many elephants left in Uganda.

In other parts of Africa where poaching is the worst (Central African Republic, for example) there simply isn't enough of a government to make a dent either way, and they have bigger problems to deal with

None of these activities are affected in any way by a total US ban. There is demand for ivory here, but there is almost ZERO demand for illegal ivory. The current ivory laws are really pretty good, and I'd love to see more money and manpower going to enforce them. More laws (or non-laws, as in the current case), will only harm those who already abide by them, since they're the ones scrupulous enough to document their activities.

"On the ground," there is really only one solution, but as a nation we don't care enough about African PEOPLE to use miliary force when we should, much less elephants. Then again, elephants probably make better campaign posters, so maybe we would.

I support any efforts to end poaching that might actually be helpful. I'd be happy if no elephant ever again died of anything but natural causes or necessary and intelligently managed culling for population control. Nothing in this recent executive order will do anything to effectively further this goal, so I'm with Mark here.

Travis,
How are you doing?
Thanks for the insight into the nature of the poaching trade. I am all for making the animals worth more alive than for the teeth & hide.

If they starting selling tags for poachers I'm sure that they most would decide to find some other occupation.

I don't agree with 99% of how this administration does much of anything but you may have an idea of using our military. T-shirts of elephant genocide may just get us to stop poaching.

 

[ron_m80]

I use to agree with this hunting elephants was good for elephants but in the long run Photo Safaris and other economic means will be a better business model of livelyhood for the people in Africa..

You agreed before you forgot Elephants breed? And that people do not travel to one of, if not the most unstable continent on the planet to take pictures.

The people who want to SAVE the elephants never seem to live near them.

 

[Rhinoknives1]

BTW I do not collect ivory knives and truly care more for the animals than the ivory

I just have been around enough to SEE what is happening

Joe,
I have nothing against people that hunt non endangered species and I make hunting knives for customers.
Hopefully people eat what they hunt. What I disagree with is that hunting elephants is the only possible answer to save elephants..

How about this with those $50.000 checks. Get together and each put in that 50 large or whatever people can and start a bank of sorts with or just grants that helps those people in country where you were start businesses were the first protect the wildlife and house, feed, farm and make and sell native made bead and wooden trinkets etc to sell to us tourists or a factory to make bricks or piping for housing & schools? If anybody knows of an organization that is currently doing this please post a link and if it checks out I will get involved myself.

I am sure long term this would work better than just handing a check to some government official or whoever this tag money is handed too?

 

[Rhinoknives1]

You agreed before you forgot Elephants breed? And that people do not travel to one of, if not the most unstable continent on the planet to take pictures.

The people who want to SAVE the elephants never seem to live near them.

And your answer is?

 

[betzner]

Rhinoknives1-

Here's a quote from your post #165:

"At the risk of an infraction on myself I will say that this current administration could screw up a wet dream and I don't like anything done by decree by the current anointed one."

And here's your current one from post #184:

I don't agree with 99% of how this administration does much of anything QUOTE]

Do us all a favor (to prevent mods from shutting it down) and stop the political comments. The issue of political comment has been mentioned more than once in this thread, including by moderators.

Thanks

 

[ron_m80]

And your answer is?

Not in alignment with your repeated and clear objections to any and all acquisition of ivory.

 

[Mark Knapp]

Hi folks, Because I don't like the taste of my own feet (hate to put them in my mouth) I try to know what I am talking about before I say something. I would rather put my money where my mouth is, I hire people smarter than I am (and have more resources than I do) to research the issues I am concerned with.

Another way to get really good information is to ask the thousands of intelligent people on this site to help. But the internet, and all media, being what it is, you need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. We do that by considering what people say, and distinguishing opinion from fact. Many people have trouble mixing them up.

Laurence is probably a very nice guy and his heart is in the right place, where he has a problem is confusing his opinions for facts and letting his feelings get in the way of reasoned thought. Everybody is entitled to there own opinions, but in mature discussion we are expected to support our statements and opinions with fact. He has disregarded the facts and has not been able to provide any credible information to support his position. when confronted with the facts, he totally disregards them. His posts are always about his feelings.

I recently posted a contest in the "knife makers supplies for sale" forum. I offered a $150.00 piece of fossil walrus ivory to any one that can tell me how much contraband ivory is imported into the US annually. Here's the link
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ossil-walrus-ivory-and-some-reasonable-prices

The only good information is information backed up by a credible source (that's what separates opinion from fact) so I asked people to show there sources.

James Laurence was the winner of my contest with the most and best information. here are his answers;


Quote Originally Posted by JAlexander
Mark, does this count as documentation? Tables 87 and 88.

http://www.savetheelephants.org/fil... Martin & Stiles Ivory Markets in the USA.pdf

Quote Originally Posted by JAlexander
Mark,

Information about contraband ivory in the USA is hard to track, but here's a couple more tidbits for you:

"From 1989 to 2007, the
number of seizures of illegal ivory made
by the Service accounted for about 30%
of all the reported seizures in the world.
Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

http://www.fws.gov/international/pd...s-to-control-illegal-elephant-ivory-trade.pdf

And Joe's right, not that I doubted him:
http://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/factsheet-import-leopard-elephant-sport-hunted-trophy-2013.pdf


I learned some pretty interesting things.

I learned that;

From ETIS (Elephant Trade Information System set up by CITES)

The U.S. is by far the most active in fighting illicit wildlife trafficking in the world.

In the years from 1998 till 2006 we had the most seizures by far but the U.S.(10,817kg)ranked ninth behind China (39,375kg) ,Tanzania(27,686kg) ,Hong Kong(14,695kg), Kenya(13,418kg), Zambia(13,556kg), Japan(12,425kg), Nigeria(11,312kg) and Singapore(10,895kg) in total weight of ivory seized (Tom Milliken,TRAFFIC,pers.comm.,October2007)

The least likely to report seizures are the the two countries most involved in wildlife trafficking, China and Thailand. So even if we report 30% of the worlds trafficking seizures, it doesn't mean we are actually trafficking thirty percent of the ivory because the countries involved in trafficking are not doing the seizing or reporting.

This statement by the USF&W Service is the most telling'

"Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

Most of the ivory seized at U.S. borders is of jewelry being brought back by unknowing tourists to other countries.

There doesn't seem to be any hard figures in recent years but it is thought that since the prices being paid in China are over ten times the prices paid in the US, there isn't a significant smuggling problem here.

So the question remains, Is it proper, never mind legal, to violate the three major cornerstones of US law ie; The right to due process, the assumption the we are innocent until proven guilty and private property cannot be seized by the government without just cause, to fix a problem that "is not significant" in the US.

 

[jjtjr]

Mark,

Thanks for all of the information.

So the question remains, Is it proper, never mind legal, to violate the three major cornerstones of US law ie; The right to due process, the assumption the we are innocent until proven guilty and private property cannot be seized by the government without just cause, to fix a problem that "is not significant" in the US.

I agree 100%.

The solution to the problem is not changing the law to make people who have obeyed the existing laws the culprits.

Jim Treacy

 

[Mark Knapp]

Seems like the CKCA might be able to contribute significantly to the funding you might need, Mark? I would think this would be a great time to lend some financial assistance to such an effort. Maybe they will help.

Thanks Bob, for some reason I missed this earlier, I don't need anything right now. I will let everybody know when the time comes. Thanks again to everyone who is offering support.

 

[hardingknives]

Aren't we making change? Right here and now? The path to the future of ivory is being altered right here. There is enough heart and quality information and opinions to make the correct choices, government please lend us your ear. Generally knife makers and enthusiast are outdoorsmen, and respect nature and it's treatment, it's what we live for, personal differences aside and sometimes the lack to convey an opinion clearly without ruffling feathers should be overlooked for the main goal we all want, freedom within a free country and our right to make choices without being so tightly governed. The fight is righteous and good, and I'm proud to be part of it. Thank you all for your input. Chad

 

[Rhinoknives1]

Mark,
Yes I am a passionate man and I do know that my heart is in the right place as I am sure yours is..

May statement of us being the No2 place for poached ivory doesn't seem to be true anymore though it was a decade or so ago.

At the same time I am wary of any government statistics that show favorable light on themselves as to what a great job they are doing enforcing the law.

"This statement by the USF&W Service is the most telling"

"Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

Since you brought up the subject of me operating on feelings I would like to add that anyone that choses to have elephant ivory for a knife handle. " A third rate material spoken by the late Mr Bob Loveless" Does so from not logical stand point, but purely emotional feeling of status, and how it looks and feels in their hand no matter that it warps, cracks etc and possible ethical considerations.

If someone wants some ancient ivory for a handle on one of my knives I may be contacting you.

 

[Steven65]

I use to agree with this hunting elephants was good for elephants but in the long run Photo Safaris and other economic means will be a better business model of livelyhood for the people in Africa..

How about this with those $50.000 checks. Get together and each put in that 50 large or whatever people can and start a bank of sorts with or just grants that helps those people in country where you were start businesses were the first protect the wildlife and house, feed, farm and make and sell native made bead and wooden trinkets etc to sell to us tourists or a factory to make bricks or piping for housing & schools? If anybody knows of an organization that is currently doing this please post a link and if it checks out I will get involved myself.
I am sure long term this would work better than just handing a check to some government official or whoever this tag money is handed too?

Your ignorance of Africa and it's problems are obvious. Please stop embarrassing yourself.

This statement by the USF&W Service is the most telling'

"Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

Most of the ivory seized at U.S. borders is of jewelry being brought back by unknowing tourists to other countries.

Mark this statistic makes perfect sense when you think about it. Why take the chance to smuggle Ivory into the US when the price being paid in the US for Ivory is still relatively low and there are still lots of tusks in private hands and collections.

The US is certainly not the problem so banning the sale of existing Ivory in the US is pointless.

 

[jdm61]

I was going to say that the 30% figure is about as tricky as the figures they the government gave for weapons seized in Mexico. The initially said that X percentage of all weapons seized came from the Us. They later quietly said that X percent of all weapons seized in Mexico whose original country of origin could be determined came from legal purchases in the US. The actual percentage of ALL weapons seized was quite another story IIRC. The fact of the matter is that we enforce strictly and we are known to err on the side of OVER-REPORTING things if there is any doubt. I may have heard wrong about this but wasn't some of the 6000 pounds of ivory recently smashed and burned actually otherwise legal stuff that had been voluntarily turned in by people who had inherited it? That kind of silliness is clearly what we are hearing from people like Prince William. That's like saying that smashing and burning all of remaining pre WW2 Martin D28 guitars is gong to discourage people from illegally cutting down Brazilian rosewood trees.

Hi folks, Because I don't like the taste of my own feet (hate to put them in my mouth) I try to know what I am talking about before I say something. I would rather put my money where my mouth is, I hire people smarter than I am (and have more resources than I do) to research the issues I am concerned with.

Another way to get really good information is to ask the thousands of intelligent people on this site to help. But the internet, and all media, being what it is, you need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. We do that by considering what people say, and distinguishing opinion from fact. Many people have trouble mixing them up.

Laurence is probably a very nice guy and his heart is in the right place, where he has a problem is confusing his opinions for facts and letting his feelings get in the way of reasoned thought. Everybody is entitled to there own opinions, but in mature discussion we are expected to support our statements and opinions with fact. He has disregarded the facts and has not been able to provide any credible information to support his position. when confronted with the facts, he totally disregards them. His posts are always about his feelings.

I recently posted a contest in the "knife makers supplies for sale" forum. I offered a $150.00 piece of fossil walrus ivory to any one that can tell me how much contraband ivory is imported into the US annually. Here's the link
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ossil-walrus-ivory-and-some-reasonable-prices

The only good information is information backed up by a credible source (that's what separates opinion from fact) so I asked people to show there sources.

James Laurence was the winner of my contest with the most and best information. here are his answers;


Quote Originally Posted by JAlexander
Mark, does this count as documentation? Tables 87 and 88.

http://www.savetheelephants.org/fil... Martin & Stiles Ivory Markets in the USA.pdf

Quote Originally Posted by JAlexander
Mark,

Information about contraband ivory in the USA is hard to track, but here's a couple more tidbits for you:

"From 1989 to 2007, the
number of seizures of illegal ivory made
by the Service accounted for about 30%
of all the reported seizures in the world.
Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

http://www.fws.gov/international/pd...s-to-control-illegal-elephant-ivory-trade.pdf

And Joe's right, not that I doubted him:
http://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/factsheet-import-leopard-elephant-sport-hunted-trophy-2013.pdf


I learned some pretty interesting things.

I learned that;

From ETIS (Elephant Trade Information System set up by CITES)

The U.S. is by far the most active in fighting illicit wildlife trafficking in the world.

In the years from 1998 till 2006 we had the most seizures by far but the U.S.(10,817kg)ranked ninth behind China (39,375kg) ,Tanzania(27,686kg) ,Hong Kong(14,695kg), Kenya(13,418kg), Zambia(13,556kg), Japan(12,425kg), Nigeria(11,312kg) and Singapore(10,895kg) in total weight of ivory seized (Tom Milliken,TRAFFIC,pers.comm.,October2007)

The least likely to report seizures are the the two countries most involved in wildlife trafficking, China and Thailand. So even if we report 30% of the worlds trafficking seizures, it doesn't mean we are actually trafficking thirty percent of the ivory because the countries involved in trafficking are not doing the seizing or reporting.

This statement by the USF&W Service is the most telling'

"Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

Most of the ivory seized at U.S. borders is of jewelry being brought back by unknowing tourists to other countries.

There doesn't seem to be any hard figures in recent years but it is thought that since the prices being paid in China are over ten times the prices paid in the US, there isn't a significant smuggling problem here.

So the question remains, Is it proper, never mind legal, to violate the three major cornerstones of US law ie; The right to due process, the assumption the we are innocent until proven guilty and private property cannot be seized by the government without just cause, to fix a problem that "is not significant" in the US.

 

[Doug C]

May statement of us being the No2 place for poached ivory doesn't seem to be true anymore though it was a decade or so ago.

Source of info ?

Doug

 

[Mark Knapp]

Mark,
Yes I am a passionate man and I do know that my heart is in the right place as I am sure yours is..

May statement of us being the No2 place for poached ivory doesn't seem to be true anymore though it was a decade or so ago.

At the same time I am wary of any government statistics that show favorable light on themselves as to what a great job they are doing enforcing the law.

"This statement by the USF&W Service is the most telling"

"Since the vast majority of seizures in the
United States were small quantities, we
do not believe that there is a significant
illegal ivory trade into this country."

Since you brought up the subject of me operating on feelings I would like to add that anyone that choses to have elephant ivory for a knife handle. " A third rate material spoken by the late Mr Bob Loveless" Does so from not logical stand point, but purely emotional feeling of status, and how it looks and feels in their hand no matter that it warps, cracks etc and possible ethical considerations.

If someone wants some ancient ivory for a handle on one of my knives I may be contacting you.

Hi Laurence,

According to the figures I have, the US was never second in trafficking, only in reporting seizure, all that means is that we are better at reporting. The figures from ETIS show we were ninth in trafficking from the years 1989-2007. I'm still looking for figures from more recent years. ETIS an independent, multinational entity set up by CITES, also an independent multinational entity, is who says we do the best job fighting trafficking than any other country in their study. It's all in the study I sighted entitled "Saving the Elephants".

Bob Loveless is entitled to his opinions too, you may agree with him or not. It's my opinion that handle material choice is a personal thing and should be up to each individual to choose, as long as it is not having an adverse effect on animals or plants involved.

It has been my mission here to prove with as much certainty that I can, (and I think I did a pretty good job) that the use of elephant ivory from elephants that died before the ban has no effect on poaching in Africa today. In fact, a statement to that effect was made by ETIS, the world authority on trade of elephant ivory. The study is long, if you like I will look it up for you when I get a chance and site it for you line and verse. You should read it yourself when you can it's very interesting.

By the way, whether or not elephant ivory is a good material or not has nothing to do with our current discussion. I should be able to use oatmeal to handle a knife if I want to as long as it does not affect the world population of oats. What we are talking about is government over-reach, that many of us feel is unconstitutional.

The most important thing about all of this is that we can have an open serious discussion with differing opinions without going to the dark side, maybe that way we can accomplish something. I thank you for your part in it.

By the way, I don't particularly like elephant ivory myself. I don't care for plane white stuff and of course it is not as stable as other kinds of ivory. But like I said, my opinions of elephant ivory don't matter. As long as it's not hurting anyone it should be legal. It's not right to go back and say "that stuff we told you was legal before, it's not legal anymore and we're going to take it away."

Just as a side note there are some hundred hear old knives with ivory on them that have never cracked. There are some very good knife makers that are able to make ivory handled knives today that will never crack.

Later, Mark

 

[Mark Knapp]

I deleted this statement because is was poorly written and be a distraction from the discussion.

 

[butcher_block]

my old man wants a ivory folder but i told him i wasnt going to do it. many reasons i told him i would look for some mammoth that had nice creamy core but even this might be a problem now.