What do you think about Kenya burning massive stockpiles of confiscated elephant ivory?

It’s their perogative. I just can’t stop thinking about all of the string instrument bridges and nuts that could be made from them though. Makes me a little sad but not as sad as the poaching.

Why not display the tusks in museums and other public venues to raise awareness of poaching? Use them to create entrances/archways and other structures as the gateway to wildlife preserves and parks? Then again I suppose the risk of theft would be high.
To destroy what has already been poached makes no sense. I’m not advocating turning the poached Ivory into decorative items but surely their is a better way to handle the contraband other than burning it.

That’s so sad to hear..who can now say human race is a gift to this planet?? It doesn’t matter now what you do with that dead material.

@imrainmaker That sentiment is flawed. Humans are no different than any other species in regards to being helpful or harmful. We evolved to this level. Everything we do is down to evolution. The animals that die off as a result of our direct actions are no different than other extinctions of animals throughout earth’s history. Animals either evolve and adapt to human populations or die off as a result. There are plenty of animals that thrive off modern human activity and have adapted to the modern human environment. Those animals will continue to evolve along with humans, while others will continue to die off. Unfortunately for the elephant, they are large, slow animals that evolved before humans gained modern technology. We are seeing survival of the fittest rear its ugly head. Humans won’t be around forever. Extinction will come for us too eventually.

@flip86 I agree to a large degree but it is not the Elephants evolutionary fault it cannot rise above rifles with long range scopes on them. Men and guns are not on the same continuum as a pride of lions leaping out of the bush. At least the Elephant has a chance to fight them off, not so with a high powered, long range rifle.

Burning them seems right. Make sure nobody can profit.

The holocaust museum doesn’t need a stack of bones to raise awareness.

Keeping them, like the US keeps gold at Fort Knox, gives them value. Burning renders them valueless.

@Coloma That is what I mean. Humans evolved to a point where they are a massive threat to elephants. The large size of the elephant makes it an easy target. Like you said, elephants can’t possibly evolve fast enough to avoid death by humans, so eventually they will go extinct. Life will go on, even after humans.

@flip86 Got’cha, thanks for clarifying.

@flip86 :: But is that the world you want to leave your kids? We invented gunpowder and thought ivory trinkets were cool so we wiped out a entire species. Survival of the opposable thumbs!

@johnpowell What is it that scientists say? 99.999% of all species have gone extinct? If it isn’t humans killing off the elephants, something else would kill off the elephants.

It’s their version of not feeding the trolls.

I still think it would be better to stockpile the ivory in a secure location until humans have stabilized the elephant population and stopped their destruction. Destroying the ivory already poached ultimately just makes the ivory the living elephants carry more rare and valuable.

If all the ivory yet destroyed was dumped on the market at one time, wouldn’t that depress the ivory market at the same time it raised a huge amount of money to protect the remaining elephants?

@ibstubro :: It would be proof that instead of making less profit you might make no profit at all. And you might go to jail.

Ideally you would just use the confiscated ivory to bust the people buying it.

What’s proof of less/no profit, @johnpowell?

GPS Trackers In Fake Elephant Tusks Reveal Ivory Smuggling Route

@flip86 – i understand your point of species going extinct with / without human intervention. But this doesn’t justify the way we humans have treated / looted mother earth. Wiping out entire species just for fun / creating ornaments doesn’t make sense.

@ibstubro I read that article in a Nat. Geo a few months ago, super cool.

This is a complicated issue. One argument against the burning is that it reduces the ivory supply, raises the price and encourages more hunting. Against this, others say that the message sent by the burning reduces demand.

Related to this is the controversy surrounding Namibia’s auctioning of permits for hunting black rhinos.

I can see the logic of burning it. If they put it in storage, the way confiscated drugs and money and things are in storage with the police, someone would have to guard it and ensure it’s not stolen. In a corrupt country, it is very likely it would be stolen. It’s sad and seems like such a waste to have it destroyed when these beautiful creatures gave their lives for it, but it would also be terrible for someone to profit from it, as they would if it were stolen.