Woolly Mammoth Ivory Is Legal, and That’s a Problem for Elephants

[edd]

By Jani Actman

PUBLISHED

AUGUST 23, 2016

For 20,000 years the remains of millions of woolly mammoths remained locked in permafrost in Siberia and elsewhere—until recently. Warming temperatures have melted this icy layer, bringing their valuable ivory teeth within grasp and leading to a burgeoning trade.

For several years conservationists have said this trade is hurting mammoths’ modern-day relatives: African elephants, which face a poaching crisis. The international trade in elephant ivory has been banned since 1990, but smugglers try to get away with selling elephant ivory by claiming it’s legal mammoth ivory, which looks nearly identical to the untrained eye.

Now in hopes of solving the problem, Israel wants to make it tougher to trade in mammoth ivory. It’s proposed a measure that will be voted on at the meeting next month in South Africa of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the treaty that regulates wildlife trade across borders.

"The gist of the Israel document is to make sure intentional mislabeling doesn't happen so that the mammoth ivory trade doesn't contribute to laundering illicit ivory," says Iris Ho, wildlife program manager at Humane Society International.

Nearly 90 percent of mammoth ivory exported out of Siberia—estimated at about 60 tons a year—ends up in China, which is also the main destination for illegal elephant ivory. Poachers kill some 30,000 elephants a year for their tusks, many of which get carved into pricey art and trinkets, just like mammoth ivory. (Also see “U.S.-China Deal to Ban Ivory Trade Is Good News for Elephants”)

View Images

Most ivory from woolly mammoths ends up in China, where it's carved into trinkets and art.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT ALEXANDER, GETTY IMAGES

At first the hope was that mammoth ivory would act as a substitute for illegal elephant ivory, helping to ease the pressure on the African animals. It’s unclear whether this happened; Asian demand for elephant ivory never slowed.

To get around the elephant ivory ban, traders sometimes mix the two ivories together, Ho says. Or they’ll simply fudge the paperwork, as one Thai vendor did about a decade ago when he exported a Chinese-carved elephant tusk to the United States, according to a paper by TRAFFIC, the body that monitors the wildlife trade. He labeled the shipment as mammoth ivory.

Sellers in Beijing also sometimes try to pass off mammoth ivory as elephant ivory in the store, says Lucy Vigne, an ivory trade researcher and co-author of a 2014 report commissioned by the nonprofit group Save the Elephants. “They can pretend it’s mammoth ivory if they’re pushed,” she explains.

Although well-preserved mammoth ivory looks a lot like ivory from African elephants, it’s possible to tell the two apart by certain distinguishing features, such as patterns known as Schreger lines, but it gets trickier with smaller trinkets. “A foolproof, instant, inexpensive testing system to tell the two ivories apart that will not damage the item has yet to be devised,” according to the Save the Elephants report.

Israel’s resolution urges countries to better scrutinize the mammoth ivory trade, punish traders who try to pass off the illegal stuff as mammoth ivory, and consider banning residents from selling mammoth ivory within the nation’s borders. India already won’t let mammoth ivory into the country, and four U.S. states—New Jersey, New York, California, and Hawaii—banned sales of it, along with elephant ivory.

There's another problem with the mammoth ivory trade that no one anticipated: It’s frustrated scientists hoping to glean valuable insights from the big teeth.

Farmer Finds Woolly Mammoth Bones in Michigan

“Over the years, I’ve seen what I can collect dwindle quite significantly,” says Daniel Fisher, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan who studies woolly mammoths at dig sites in Siberia. “There’s still important questions to be solved about woolly mammoths. Do we study the tusks and learn something from them, or do we carve them?”

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[sseth]

Thanks for posting this.

I must say, I am disappointed in this article on many levels. It does not take much to distinguish mammoth ivory from elephant. What it does take is someone who cares enough to take the time to learn. Governments would sometimes prefer to just prohibit that take a bit of extra time and training to do things correctly. We see this over and over again, and not just in the fossil industry. This would require a bit more time but would be worth it in the end. I will explain more below.

It also appears that they are addressing the wrong problem with these solutions. Banning all ivory does not stop poaching, just as banning pencils will not stop incorrect spelling. The better solution would be to provide more resources on the ground to address poaching at the source. It seems there is too much apathy in the world to even consider this solution. Most of the world seems content to keep the limited resources in rangers and anti-poaching units, which are too severely understaffed to even remotely address the issue, and put our funding into trying to simply catch illegal ivory at its destination. Once the animals are dead, it is already to late. Funding for boots on the ground is a huge issue.

Another issue is that by banning a legal source of ivory, as in mammoth, the price for ivory of any kind increases. In business we call it the law of supply and demand. The more you limit the legal and inexpensive supply, the more valued it becomes and the more incentive there is to obtain it, legally or not. Unfortunately, it is just the way the world of money works.

I also chuckle at Dr. Fisher's comment, “There’s still important questions to be solved about woolly mammoths. Do we study the tusks and learn something from them, or do we carve them?”. There are literally tens of thousands of tusks in repositories around the world, from every species that ever lived. Collecting a few more will really not add to the body of knowledge that is already locked away behind closed doors. This is similar to saying that Megalodon teeth should only be collected by science for study as well. I know not everyone will agree with this, but having a foot both in academia and in private collecting, I quite often see the attitude that all fossils belong to science and no one else should have them. Maybe that train of thought is right and maybe it is wrong.

In summary, I absolutely want to save elephants, and stop poaching of any sort. I am an avid outdoors-man and while I support utilizing our natural resources, I believe that conservation strategies should be used in all areas, and with all resources. I also believe that we need to approach this problem from a different angle of we want to find a solution that works. The solution is absolutely going to take additional time and money, but I believe it will be worth it in the end.

Sorry to ramble on about this and I hope I have not offended anyone with my ranting and philosophizing. My intent was simply to share my opinion in this issue.