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On The Preservation of Elephants |
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The preservation of elephants is the hottest and most controversial issue in the animal rights and conservation inner circle. The clash between humans who wish to trade in the tusks of elephants as well as villagers whose food supplies and lives are affected by overpopulated herds that raid human crops is a serious situation with no easy answers. Add to that the lack of a strong and effective governmental infrastructure to fight off poachers and you’ve got the makings of a very volatile issue. And, despite attempts to change the situation, there is still a strong world wide human demand for ivory products.
The founders of http://www.antiquespider.com/ are profound lovers of the majestic elephant. We sit on a controversial side of the issue because we advocate the sale of items legally derived form ivory bearing animals provided that the activity is heavily regulated and controlled. We feel that all elephant lovers should understand the urgency of continuing the trade in legal ivories for the future survival of existing populations of elephants worldwide.
First of all, protecting elephants requires a great deal of money; money for the acquisition of land for herds to roam on; money for the hiring and maintenance of an effective security force to safeguard against poachers, and money to establish and support the proper infrastructure to maintain these policies. The current situation is untenable. Some countries have as few as two officers to protect more than a thousand square miles of land from poaching. These poachers are aware that the penalty for their crime is death and will not hesitate to murder these officials rather than be caught.
The sale of ivory legally acquired from licensed hunting and from animals culled to control populations generates income that can be put back into the system of protecting the elephant. There are elephant reserves that have up to several hundred pounds of ivory specimens that are derived from manicuring living elephants. The money received from the sale of that ivory, if it were permitted to be circulated into the marketplace, would be a significant source of revenue to fund the necessary policies that would further conservation causes.
The other issue is there are millions of pre-ban ivory art items, jewelry and raw specimen which have been in circulation for many, many years. Mammoth ivory is in circulation in great volume and in many instances has replaced the demand for modern day elephant tusks. It is our opinion that if collectors had easy access to the older articles, they would be less likely to seek out illegally acquired ivories. If the sale of old ivory and mammoth is banned, as it has been recently prohibited on eBay, and legal traders are shut out from the market then it is highly likely that illegal traders would step in and command a greater prices which would encourage even more poaching.
AntiqueSpider seeks to insure that the trade in all legal ivories remains above ground by creating a venue for people that own 1-5 pieces and dealers with large quantities a safe place to sell their items. Our site demands that sellers of all items with any amount of ivory of any kind comply with all applicable laws. As part of our on going effort to help preserve the sanctuaries for all species of elephants AntiqueSpider donates a portion of its profits to Riddle's Elephant Sanctuary in Arkansas, USA. http://elephantsanctuary.org/
The issue is complex and we invite your opinions on our open forum.
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