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?
Making emotional decisions rather than rational decisions is the keystone of the leftwing arch.
Should have been sold flooding the market and thus depressing the price for poachers.
How about putting it into a 3D printer and making some figurines?
There is “good environmentalism” and “bad environmentalism”.
This is an example of the latter.
An example of the former is that, if ivory is rare and valuable, make more of it, so that it will be cheaper.
Ivory is basically dentin, similar to bone. With a little effort, it could likely be grown on a matrix as large logs or timbers, of higher quality than natural ivory. Superior to the plastics used as substitutes, large scale production could provide ivory so cheaply that no more elephants would be slaughtered.
But this would not serve the ends of “bad environmentalists”, who see shortage and deprivation as good things, that afford them control over others.
African elephants are fish or wildlife in the U.S.?
Yes—Elephant farming.
Much in the same manner as cattle or pig farming. There is no great want for beef or pork, and product prices are determined primarily by market forces (interference by the government in the entire process is biasing prices upward, though).
Recall the treatment cattle rustlers received at the hands of a posse. That was because they were stealing the private property and livelihood of a citizen.
Right now, private ownership of elephants is not permitted from what I can determine. As such, there is no economic incentive to protect them. Allowing people to profit from elephant ownership, and the attendant demand for ivory products, will go a long way toward elephant preservation.
Of course, most of the world, including the US, is either ignorant of, or averse to, (or both) capitalistic market solutions.
Bounties paid on heads of poachers, large bounties.
Sounds to me like somebody could make a pretty good profit by starting some elephant ranches and raise them like cattle.
They could have sold it and put the 12 M on the debt.
Redo on the math, then...
6 * 2,000 * $1,000 = $12,000,000
6 * 2,000 * $10,000 = $120,000,000
Now that could really help to pay down the debt!
I haven’t looked into the statistics of it recently, but in the past, the only countries in Africa that had herds increasing in size were those where it was legal to hunt elephants, and the herds were managed by folks who had a vested interest in the health and safety of those herds. The fact that herds are being decimated in some areas is a direct result of their current policies.
Like Muslims in space, there seems to be no limit to the wallet of the American taxpayer.
Exactly. No one in this gov’t has taken economics 101; supply and demand.
Financed by the tag fees sold to legal hunters as they used to do in Rhodesia.
Female elephants have a calf about every 4 to five years. It takes many years for an elephant to grow their tusks. Meanwhile they eat tons of food. The ivory would have to bring a very good price to pay back those costs.(Not that I would ever advocate killing an elephant for its tusks)
Financed by the tag fees sold to legal hunters as they used to do in Rhodesia.
++++++++++++
I was thinking of using the ivory to finance the idea.
Don’t you know that we are always just 10 years away from any given disaster unless huge sums of money are spent on “research”.
We are the most stupid people on this planet, bar none!
He got me too knarf. Caught off guard and almost choked on my Gatorade!
Alright. Confession time. I've been sent from Democrat Underground.
My mission: DESTROY CONSERVATIVE KEYBOARDS AND MONITORS, and SEE HOW MANY PEOPLE I CAN CAUSE TO CHOKE TO DEATH ON LIQUIDS!
HA! HA! HA! HA!
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