Conservation or insanity

[Zuma]

Can't elephants still be legally hunted in some places? I was under the impression populations recovered to the point where they were too numerous in certain places.

Perhaps I am sure, with enough $ you could still find a place to kill one. I haven't looked into that aspect. I hope you read the link about the slaughter of hundreds of elephants by park people

If someone is wiling to buy the tusks, before long someone else will have some to sell. They should remove them from the live elephants and sell those as no-kill ivory. Don't flood the black market, create a clean one and put the other out of business. Roll the funds back into the protection and harvesting programs.

Well, atleast this would create some jobs 
Thanks for looking for solutions.
Zuma

[Zuma]

bjrogg, No problems. Same page and yes lots of research.
Just not a lot of answers. Wonder what we could do with
them, if we had them??

Mounter, Yep money talks

jeff, do you think there is hope? Like the west becoming smoke free.
Perhaps not a good analogy. We were only killing ourselves.

crooket-- I would rather be in the tent where they were burning grass
than tusks.

There will always be two sides to a coin.
I appreciate learning about both. thanks
Zuma

[jeffp51]

 I don't know about solutions. I do think that selling confiscated tusks would be like police departments using seized drug money to fund their departments or small town cops with quotas on speeding tickets--it eventually leads to more dependence on the revenue stream and eventually to corruption.
I have seen a couple of documentaries where tuskless elephants--once a rarity--are now becoming more common due to natural selection, so maybe Darwin will take care of everything.  The hope that people will get smarter and end self-destructive behavior seems low to me.

[Zuma]

Thanks jeff, I see where your comming from.
But elephants without tusks?? kinda like girls/women
with short hair. Hummm.
Zuma

[jeffp51]

I know what you mean- some suggest tranquizing elephants and cutting off the tusks to save them from poachers, but that seems horrible to me too.

And I have been trying to get my wife to grrow out her hair for years.

[Zuma]

Well they did it. 300 million up in smoke
 I saw video on PBS news.
Zuma

[jeffp51]

Ethics is an interesting concept. Say a man Rob's a million dollars in jewels from a a rich home. In the robbery the home owner is shot and killed, leaving no next of kin. As the robber makes his escape across your back yard, a large portion falls from the bag for you to recover the next day.  Are you justified in selling them because they would go to waste otherwise? If the police recover the gems, are they justified in reselling the items?

If a church preaches against gambling, should it accept donations from someone's lottery or Vegas winnings?

Somehow the profit from the tusks in this case seems like the same moral question to me,

[Zuma]

Ethics is an interesting concept. Say a man Rob's a million dollars in jewels from a a rich home. In the robbery the home owner is shot and killed, leaving no next of kin. As the robber makes his escape across your back yard, a large portion falls from the bag for you to recover the next day.  Are you justified in selling them because they would go to waste otherwise? If the police recover the gems, are they justified in reselling the items?

Somehow the profit from the tusks in this case seems like the same moral question to me,

Well OK but can you show me where they ever torched the jewels?
Ethics and morals are intangables. Dollars and thier equivalents are real.
So were the tusks until today.
You can do something with something but you can't do nothing with nothing.
IMO of course. I think the elephants are crying.
Zuma

[jeffp51]

I think they are too.

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

I know in some places they are capturing elephants and dying the tusks a bright color that cannot be removed so as to leave the elephant with their tusks but render them useless for ivory.

[Zuma]

I know in some places they are capturing elephants and dying the tusks a bright color that cannot be removed so as to leave the elephant with their tusks but render them useless for ivory.

Interesting concept, I hope we hear more about it.
thanks Zuma

[Weylin]

I know in some places they are capturing elephants and dying the tusks a bright color that cannot be removed so as to leave the elephant with their tusks but render them useless for ivory.

Interesting concept, I hope we hear more about it.
thanks Zuma

I've heard that the problem with the dyed/removed tusks is that poachers go to the trouble of tracking an elephant and when they find it with dyed/removed tusks they kill it anyway so they don't waste their time tracking it again. Pretty depressing to think about. 

[mullet]

I hate to say it, but it seems like it's going to happen no matter what someone tries to do to stop it. You are talking about countries that have a hard time providing safe water and food for the majority of the people in their country.

Do you think that this argument didn't happen during Paleo times? "We can't sale any more Mastodon steaks, we'll run out"

[JoJoDapyro]

The sad truth is that this type of thing is going on in the US right now with drugs. A kid grows up poor, in a bad neighborhood. He sees his neighbor work his butt off, working 2 jobs, 60 hours a week and just scrapes by. He also sees the guy seeing drugs, working a few hours a day, and has everything that he could ever want. Cars, Women, a house, friends, drugs and booze. Why work 60 hours a week and only barely squeak by, when you can sling some drugs and live the fat life? The answer is pretty simple. I sleep well at night knowing that I get mine the right way. I don't have to watch out for people who want to steal from me (For the most part), and I don't have to be afraid of every slow moving vehicle, or police officer I see.

[JEB]

I scratch my heads as to why a government that could really use the money wouldn't sell instead of burn.