Six tons of illegal ivory to be crushed

[Kitsune]

Almost sad that many are works of art but as well can understand the reasoning

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tons ... r-20883086

6 Tons of Seized Ivory Being Crushed in Denver
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. November 14, 2013 (AP)
By STEVEN K. PAULSON Associated Press
Associated Press

U.S. officials are destroying more than 6 tons of confiscated ivory tusks, carvings and jewelry — the bulk of the U.S. "blood ivory" stockpile — to support the fight against a $10 billion global trade that slaughters tens of thousands of elephants each year.

Officials on Thursday will use rock crushers to pulverize the stockpile, accumulated over the past 25 years, at the National Wildlife Property Repository just north of Denver. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will donate the crushed ivory particles to a museum to be determined for future display.

Service officials showed off thousands of ivory tusks, statues, ceremonial bowls, masks and ornaments to be destroyed — a collection they said represented the killing of more than 2,000 adult elephants.

The items were seized from smugglers, traders and tourists at U.S. ports of entry after a global ban on the ivory trade went into effect in 1989.

"What is striking to me is the lengths that some commercial importers and smugglers will go to conceal their ivory — everything from staining it with colors to covering it with leather," said Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Steve Oberholtzer. "The stakes are high in the ivory trade."

The message from Thursday's crush likely will reach consumers more than the faraway poachers and smugglers targeted by governments across the globe. Elephant poaching is at an all-time high, thanks in large part to U.S. demand and growing demand in Asia.

The British-based Born Free Foundation estimates that poachers killed 32,000 elephants last year. It says that black-market ivory sells for around $1,300 per pound.

Most elephants are killed in Africa, where there are about 300,000 African elephants left. There are an estimated 50,000 Asian elephants found from India to Vietnam.

Not everyone supported the ivory crush. Bob Weisblut, a co-founder of the Florida-based International Ivory Society, said he thought the carvings and tusks should be sold to raise money for anti-poaching efforts.

"A lot of this is beautiful art," Weisblut said. "And it's a shame to destroy it."

The ivory being destroyed didn't include items legally imported or acquired before the 1989 global ban.

"This is a way to say to people we are not putting a value on ivory. We're putting a value on the lives of the elephants," said Azzedine Downes, president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which works with U.S. agents to enforce animal protection laws.

[Ralin]

Really sad. Here's hoping the ban on ivory is rescinded someday so travesties like this can stop happening.

[Mr. Coffee]

Really sad. Here's hoping the ban on ivory is rescinded someday so travesties like this can stop happening.

You do know that lifting that ban is basically the same thing as telling poachers to go ahead and kill all the elephants they want, right?

Good on the Government. Be nicer if they'd get a little more proactive in stopping the oxygen-thieving bastard poachers, but I suppose you have to take what you can get.

[Akhlut]

Really sad. Here's hoping the ban on ivory is rescinded someday so travesties like this can stop happening.

Maybe the artists shouldn't be using illegally-sourced ivory from poached elephants and we won't destroy their artwork. There are legal ivory sources around (mammoth ivory, primarily, and pre-ban raw ivory, rare as that is) to do such artwork.

[PeZook]

Would Ralin be saying the same thing about artwork made from human bones that are harvested from mass-murdered humans?

[Ralin]

You do know that lifting that ban is basically the same thing as telling poachers to go ahead and kill all the elephants they want, right?

Yeah, I'm against most conservationist efforts. There are too many big, stupid mammals in the world. Anything that gets rid of a few is a good thing in my book.

Would Ralin be saying the same thing about artwork made from human bones that are harvested from mass-murdered humans?

I dunno. I'd have to think about that one.

[Patroklos]

I would refer this be made into some gruesome graveyard exhibit to shock the public, perhaps after walking through a live elephant experiance to prep the ground.

[Grumman]

Really sad. Here's hoping the ban on ivory is rescinded someday so travesties like this can stop happening.

Maybe the artists shouldn't be using illegally-sourced ivory from poached elephants and we won't destroy their artwork. There are legal ivory sources around (mammoth ivory, primarily, and pre-ban raw ivory, rare as that is) to do such artwork.

Does the law distinguish between ivory harvested before and after the ban?

[Mr. Coffee]

You do know that lifting that ban is basically the same thing as telling poachers to go ahead and kill all the elephants they want, right?

Yeah, I'm against most conservationist efforts. There are too many big, stupid mammals in the world

I know. I'm talking one right now, as a matter of fact.

Anything that gets rid of a few is a good thing in my book.

Glad we agree. Now be a good little oxygen thief and chug some drain cleaner.

[The Vortex Empire]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition

If you can read that and still be okay with killing elephants, you are a sociopath. It's no different than killing children.

[Kitsune]

Really sad. Here's hoping the ban on ivory is rescinded someday so travesties like this can stop happening.

Maybe the artists shouldn't be using illegally-sourced ivory from poached elephants and we won't destroy their artwork. There are legal ivory sources around (mammoth ivory, primarily, and pre-ban raw ivory, rare as that is) to do such artwork.

Does the law distinguish between ivory harvested before and after the ban?

Pre-Ban ivory would have a paper trail

[Vehrec]

You do know that lifting that ban is basically the same thing as telling poachers to go ahead and kill all the elephants they want, right?

Yeah, I'm against most conservationist efforts. There are too many big, stupid mammals in the world. Anything that gets rid of a few is a good thing in my book.

I hate to rain on your parade, but 'too many big, stupid mammals' is not in any way descriptive of elephants-they are rare and getting rarer, they are amazingly intelligent, and their social lives mirror ours in many ways-they too act in grief and play and they even masturbate, and act out in juvenile pique if there are no adult male figures in their lives. Poaching has reduced the population of elephants in most countries in Africa and Asia to small, genetically isolated enclaves. But if you don't care about big intelligent mammals, then you probably don't care about plants or fish or any other organism in the biosphere, and you probably think we should just spread out the Burns Omni-Net and sweep the seas clean in an orgy of capitalism.

[Zaune]

Would Ralin be saying the same thing about artwork made from human bones that are harvested from mass-murdered humans?

Don't ask the question unless you're absolutely certain you want to know the answer, especially since at time of writing, his post-count is exactly 666.

[Akhlut]

You do know that lifting that ban is basically the same thing as telling poachers to go ahead and kill all the elephants they want, right?

Yeah, I'm against most conservationist efforts. There are too many big, stupid mammals in the world. Anything that gets rid of a few is a good thing in my book.

Wow, you don't understand sociology or biology! Turns out that elephants are important in maintaining the complex interplay between savannahs and scrub-forests in sub-Saharan Africa, while doing thousands of other things that help out pretty much everything around them, from fertilizing the land (elephants produce hundreds of pounds of manure a day) to providing easily obtained calcium to everything in the food web, via rodents chewing on their bones and being eaten, in turn, by larger predators.

But, hey, as your next statement shows, you're probably a complete monster anyway.

Would Ralin be saying the same thing about artwork made from human bones that are harvested from mass-murdered humans?

I dunno. I'd have to think about that one.

Wow. You have to think about whether or not you'd be saddened by the destruction of artwork made from genocide victims?

You're a real fucking class act.

[Napoleon the Clown]

You do know that lifting that ban is basically the same thing as telling poachers to go ahead and kill all the elephants they want, right?

Yeah, I'm against most conservationist efforts. There are too many big, stupid mammals in the world. Anything that gets rid of a few is a good thing in my book.

Would Ralin be saying the same thing about artwork made from human bones that are harvested from mass-murdered humans?

I dunno. I'd have to think about that one.

You're a libertarian, aren't you? Pretty extreme one at that.

[Irbis]

Really sad, though I can't stop thinking maybe they should donate best pieces to public museums before crushing.

Sigh

Yeah, I'm against most conservationist efforts. There are too many big, stupid mammals in the world.

Go fuck yourself. With a porcupine

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Go fuck yourself. With a porcupine

Hey, that was uncalled for. What did porcupines ever do to you?

[Akhlut]

[quote="Irbis"]Really sad, though I can't stop thinking maybe they should donate best pieces to public museums before crushing.

Sigh

Refer to the last paragraph of the article.

Plus, it's not like these are historically significant pieces. They are all under thirty years old.

[Patroklos]

Think Holocaust Museum sort of display.

[Ralin]

You're a libertarian, aren't you? Pretty extreme one at that.

Heaven forbid.

[Napoleon the Clown]

See, you're the kind of libertarian that gives them a bad name. You don't think "Oh, people will make the best choices if you let them!" You just blatantly have no regard for life or the well-being of living creatures. All you care about is yourself.

But hey, feel free to give your cause a bad name. I'm sure "fuck you, got mine" is gonna sway people.

[Ralin]

See, you're the kind of libertarian that gives them a bad name. You don't think "Oh, people will make the best choices if you let them!" You just blatantly have no regard for life or the well-being of living creatures. All you care about is yourself.

But hey, feel free to give your cause a bad name. I'm sure "fuck you, got mine" is gonna sway people.

Hey man, hey. I ain't no goddamn libertarian. I just don't like wild animals or nature.

[Napoleon the Clown]

And I don't like people who are utter fuckheads, doesn't mean I wish death on them. Don't like nature and wild animals? Don't interact with them. Elephants don't hurt you.

[SCRawl]

I will offer the following advice: don't feed the trolls. Mock them mercilessly if you like, but the comparison with pigs and mud wrestling comes to mind.

[PeZook]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition

If you can read that and still be okay with killing elephants, you are a sociopath. It's no different than killing children.

How about cutting off a child's FACE while it is still alive in order to get at the teeth, then leaving it to die?