What Is It About an Elephant's Tusks That Make Them So Valuable?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/what-is-it-about-an-elephants-tusks-that-make-them-so-valuable/262021/




In Garamba National Park in the northeastern corner of Congo, thousands of elephants are being killed each year for their tusks, their carcasses discarded like hair clippings on a barbershop's floor.

In a beautiful and brutal report, New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman describes the carnage, both animal and human, in harrowing detail. Last year, he writes, "broke the record for the amount of illegal ivory seized worldwide, at 38.8 tons (equaling the tusks from more than 4,000 dead elephants). Law enforcement officials say the sharp increase in large seizures is a clear sign that organized crime has slipped into the ivory underworld, because only a well-oiled criminal machine -- with the help of corrupt officials -- could move hundreds of pounds of tusks thousands of miles across the globe, often using specially made shipping containers with secret compartments." (Although there are many sources of ivory such as walruses, rhinoceros, and narwhals, elephant ivory has always been the most highly sought because of its particular texture, softness, and its lack of a tough outer coating of enamel.)

What in the world could fuel such demand for animal teeth? An ascendant Chinese middle class, whose millions can now afford the prized material. According to Gettlemen, as much of 70 percent of the illegal ivory heads to China, where a pound can fetch as much as $1,000. "The demand for ivory has surged to the point that the tusks of a single adult elephant can be worth more than 10 times the average annual income in many African countries," Gettlemen writes.

This explains the mechanics. Demand rises, price goes up, and the costs poachers and smugglers are willing to endure increase in sync. But what underlies the demand? Why do so many Chinese people want these elongated cones of dentin?

[Systematic Chaos]

1. How the fuck do you expect grandma to play mah jongg without ivory?

Won't you please think of grandma??

[freethought]

2. Article makes a good point

Try to limit or cut off the supply and the price only goes up. Making it only accessible to very rich. Which, in turn, will raise the mystique of ivory even further and thus raising the price more and making ivory poaching even more attratctive to people in countries where economies are disfunctional beyond belief.

The Chinese and other Asian cultures hold to certain superstitions very tightly. For example, ground up rhino horn is a cure-all and aphrodisiac, eating parts of tiger will impart you with the tiger's strength, gall bladders from bears will give you eternal youth, and the list goes on. There's not a shred of scientific evidence to prove any of it but people still hold tightly to these superstitions. Changing them will be a slow process.

In Arab cultures it used to be (and may still be) a status symbol to possess a dagger whose blade was carved and fashioned from rhino horns, even though as a cutting material rhino horn is virtually useless, it was the status of it that mattered. I am not even sure that this has changed. It could be the black market for rhino horns simply shifted to China because they were willing to pay a larger price than the Arabs would.

[xchrom]

3. I thought it was the handle not the blade

That made up the knife in Arab countries?

[freethought]

4. After a little checking, you may be right

As I learned and read about it, it seemed to me that the horn was used as the blade. A little checking online seemed to indicate otherwise. Looks like you're correct. However, it really does not change the impact.

[xchrom]

5. Indeed - impact would be the same. Nt