Posted on 11/17/2013 5:53:08 AM PST by Kaslin
Here's an interesting video of the US taking 6 tons of confiscated ivory to Africa to crush it. The purpose was to "send a message" to poachers.
The entire worldwide elephant population is 500,000. They are vanishing at a rate of 50,000 per year, just for their ivory.
A couple of people sent me this video, Reader Michael was first.
Link if video does not play: U.S. crushes 6 tons of confiscated ivory to send message to poachers
Africa's elephants are being slaughtered at a record pace by poachers who hope to get rich by selling their ivory tusks.
The U.S. has been trying to stop it. And today the feds sent a powerful message -- by gathering all the ivory they have seized in the past quarter-century and bringing it to a wildlife refuge in Colorado.
Where millions once roamed free across Africa, the numbers of elephants have plummeted because of poaching to about 500,000.
Poaching was the source of six tons of illegal ivory confiscated by U.S. officials, from raw tusks to exquisitely carved statues.
Robert Ruggiero, who runs the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's anti-poaching effort in Africa, says the poachers will stop at nothing to get the ivory tusks. "Even poachers who are killed are readily replaced. There's an endless supply of people willing to take those risks," Ruggiero said.
The soaring demand comes mostly from newly rich Chinese, who see ivory as a status symbol. A pound of ivory now sells for more than $1,000 on the streets of Beijing.
The Math
1 ton = 2,000 pounds
6 tons destroyed
Street price = $1,000 pound
6 * 2,000 * $1,000 = $12,000,000
$12 million dollars is not a lot to the U.S. But it is a lot to Kenya.
Carved Ivory
Carved ivory is surely worth a lot more than raw ivory. 10 times more? I don't know.
Unfortunately there was no breakdown of how much carved ivory was crushed, but the video showed rooms of it being boxed for destruction. For the sake of argument, let's just assume the entire lot could have fetched $50 million at auction.
I have a simple question: What if instead of crushing that ivory, the US auctioned the ivory with all proceeds going to African nations for anti-poaching efforts?
How many people could Kenya have hired for $50 million? Wouldn't that have done more for the elephants than crushing it?
Insane waste.
When the supply is dramatically diminished, what is likely to happen to the value of the remaining product? I wonder if the poachers have done the math.
Ivory is NOW 10,000 dollars a pound..
Ivory is NOW 10,000 dollars a pound..
I couldn't help but wonder if there isn't some practical use for crushed ivory..
Auction off the ivory. Then use the money to hire armed guards to protect the elephant herds. That would make more sense.
Maybe not, but I think the US has some capitalistic fingers in this "Damn those poachers to hell" pie.
Auction off the ivory.
This would reduce the demand, lower the prices and make raw ivory less valuable.
The left fails at math again. Perhaps, spending the money to flood the market with good fake ivory would be a real message.
What part of rarity of commodity do these socialists fail to understand?
The poaching problem could be solved with industrious husbandry.
Use of the entire elephant could provide a wide variety of products.
I would prefer they put the ivory back on the elephants.
Soap.
It’s the same satanic-minded spirituality that led Obama to destroy perfectly good cars because their fuel mileage was not good enough (disregarding how the cars might be used).
Why not give the ivory back to Africa and let them decide what to do with it.
How about a market solution allowing private individuals to outright own elephants and attendant ivory products?
Among other things, instead of finding dead elephants one would be finding dead poachers.
This would have been more normal anyhow. Usually when something that violates customs is confiscated, they don’t destroy it; in fact usually the customs official who caught it gets to keep it.
Elephant farming?
Also, naturally deceased elephants could have ivory taken; RF tag live elephants and just wait till they aren’t moving any more.
And just made the ivory NOT in the governments possession more valuable.
The USA Is Now Governed By Clueless Idiots.
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