Because cows are profitable, buffalo are not.
There were once more buffalo than cows and buffalo were profitable. People shot all the buffalo until there were almost none left.
The only reason this doesn't happen with cows is that they are domesticated and purposely bred in very large numbers for eventual slaughter. Do we really want to do that with elephants?
Soon we should be able to genetically grow the full sized tusks....on mice.
No, we don’t want to do that with elephants, and I say that not only as an elephant lover but from a practical standpoint. Elephants have long gestation periods and don’t reproduce as much as cows. Elephants eat a lot and the tusks don’t even begin to grow until 2 or 3 yrs. Of age.