Nobody is "anti-ivory." We're pro-elephant. We don't want to see the African elephant go extinct -- or suffer from the continuing devastation that poachers are inflicting on the species.
The link that you show is a good one, but the testing method that it demonstrates requires a polished cross section of the ivory, with multiple tests and multiple measurements and a photocopy machine. The multiple tests are required because single measurements can make elephant ivory appear to be mammoth ivory and vice versa. If you don't have a polished cross section, which is going to be the case on most finished products, you'll probably be stuck with destructive and expensive DNA testing.
When inspectors go into a shop or warehouse where there are thousands of ivory products, they have no practical way to test everything -- neither the manpower nor the money for testing. And how do you tell pre-ban from post ban blood ivory?
There is no practical way to prevent the ivory industry from using blood ivory if the ban on ivory is not an across-the-board ban.
What this post deliberately tries to obscure is that USFW, after years of trying and failing to enforce the federal partial ban, has found that only a total ban on all ivory is enforceable. Partial bans are being used by your industry to facilitate the flow of blood ivory into the US.
First, I am anti-poaching, pro elephant too, I put the "Anti-Ivory" in quotes and used it to distinguish the sides of this discussion.
Many of the other things you write are opinions of yours and other people, no more or less valid than any one else'. Certainly if someone was trying to push an agenda as the USF&W Service and the President is, they would try to further those points of view. What we are asking them to do is show us the reports of scientific studies that support those claims (as I have/we done to support ours). So far, we have gotten none, people make the claims without the supporting documents. That is the problem.
In the case of raw ivory it is very easy to distinguish between mammoth and elephant. With most knives I have seen, it would be very easy to measure the angles in the Schreger lines. On some you might need to pull an end cap or a scale. With today's take down versions of knives it's not difficult. On some knives and art works, it may not be determinable. On many it will.
I can measure the Schreger lines on pretty close to 100 percent of the mammoth ivory in my shop with no special setup, just sanding the ends. Most finished artworks are already polished and the lines can be seen.
I know these things from personal experience, you can dispute them if you want. You can disregard them because of my financial stake in it. That's OK, facts are facts.
For me to prove these things to you, you would have to be here in my shop, because you are not likely to take what I write or show you in pictures on the internet at face value, but if you want, I will get a piece, sand it, and show you the measurable Schreger lines, you should be able to easily see them with the naked eye with low resolution internet.
As for pre-act and post act ivory, I have demonstrated with the studies I cited that the government agencies are doing a pretty good job of keeping it out, and the USF&W service is doing a pretty good job of catching the guys that do get it through. If you don't want to accept those reports as credible support for my position, I don't know what else I can tell you.
We are at an impasse, and I see no reason to keep going over it again and again.
I am happy to tell anyone that is interested in what I know and have learned, some people will not accept it for there own reasons.
There are a very small minority of people in the ivory business in the U.S. that are doing the wrong thing. I can not think of one industry in the U.S. that Americans would be happy to outlaw for the actions of just a few. Name any industry, someone is doing it illegally.
