The REAL Cost of Ivory

By: Shawnee King

An African savanna is full of
wonders. By the watering pool,
animals dip their heads to take a
drink. A lion prowls around near the
pool, looking for something to eat.
All of a sudden, BANG! A gunshot
rings through the air. The trumpet
of elephants turns into a sound of
feet pounding the ground, causing
an elephant stampede. However,
one of the herd remains, a dying
elephant. A hunter climbs out of
the tall grass and cuts the tusk off
of the elephant. The hunter walks
away with his back turned towards
the dead elephant carcass. This, is
the REAL cost of Ivory.

Exotic Elephants: What Are

They?
Elephants are one of the
worlds wonders. They are
peaceful, and are only aggressive
in defense of their young, or they
are threatened by
someone/something. They are
considered the largest land animals
in the world. However, the African
elephant is slightly larger than its
Asian cousin but all in all; they are
still
the

largest in the animal kingdom.

Since they have a superior size,
they have no natural enemies.
Occasionally, scavengers, such as
Hyenas, will tail a sick or dying
elephant. However, this does not
Hyenas are one of the few scavengers that
attack sick or dying elephants

mean that they are elephant

predators; they are just there to
help clean up the environment.

Animals and People: How

do we use an Elephant?
Scavengers will occasionally
track a sick or dying elephant. They
will do this for they understand that
the elephant is weak enough for
them to kill. The animals reasons
for killing a weak elephant is meat
they posses and the amount of
food they could eat if they killed
the elephant. The animals then
survive eating the meat but leave
the bones and tusks for they
survive off of them. However, we
slaughter the elephants; use a
small fraction of the elephant (the
tusk) for some silly decorations.
Since we use so little of the
elephant, it sort of says we killed
the elephant for no reason but only
for the glory of it. This then causes
the elephants to become
endangered because we use so
little of the elephant so we have to
kill a lot of them in order to get a
large quantity of a small part of the
elephant.

Extinct Elephants: The

Ivory Trade
Ivory is a white substance
found on elephants, walruses and
narwhal whales. The Ivory is used
mainly for making decorations and
ornaments. However, people are
too lazy to go to the sea to try and
find ivory off of the sea animals, so
they go to a much easier source,
the African Elephant. This looks like
a solution to the worlds demand for
ivory right? No it isnt. In order to
get the ivory from the huge beasts,
they must kill them. Since the
demand for ivory is quite large and

the amount of money acquired

when you sell the ivory is a lot,
people are killing off elephants so
fast that they have been
considered an endangered species.
However, governments all around
the world are crushing illegal,
confiscated ivory. They do this in
order for the people to not use the
ivory for anything because it is now
dust. However, people still go
through the government and sell
illegal ivory. This then turned into
the Ivory Trade. This is a
complicated network of ivory
smugglers that sell ivory that was
illegally obtained.

Ivory and its Uses

Ivory is a simple substance
that elephants; walrus and narwhal
whales grow on their bodies. Ivory
is white and is used for many
different decorations. This has
become very popular because of
the clear white color of the ivory.
However, ivory is not easy to
obtain. In order to get ivory, we
have to kill the animals that have
ivory on them and they cut off the
ivory off. However, people dont
want to waste money on a ship and
all the equipment to go on a sea
and they go to the easier, less
expensive source, the elephants,
the African ones in particular. Since
we have to go to the easier source
so much, the African elephants are
dying out because we have so little
left after we massacred them for
their tusks. However, like Cynthia
Moss said, No one needs ivory. It
is a beautiful substance, but the
only ones who need it are
elephants. She is saying that
people dont need ivory. She says
that elephants are the ones who
need it more than anyone in the
world. As Cynthia Moss said, ivory

does not have a use except for

miniature statues and heads of
canes, therefore making the uses
of ivory as nothing.
As Jane Goodall once said
Only if we
understand
POWER WORDS
we can care.
Confiscated: Forcefully taken
Only if we
away from someone for
care we will
authority purposes
help. Only if
we help shall
Ivory Trade: The form of trade
they be
that involves killing elephants
saved. The
and selling their tusks illegally to
elephants will
acquire large amounts of money
not be saved
unless we
Obtained: To acquire something
understand
in any form or shape
the main
problem of elephants being
endangered. The problem is the
ivory trade. Then when we care for
the elephants we will help stop the

Elephants are becoming extinct

and its our job to save them

Bibliography
"Elephant." WorldWildlife.org.
World Wildlife Fund. Web. 25
Mar. 2015.
<https://www.worldwildlife.org/s
pecies/elephant>.
"What the Experts Say." What
the Experts Say. Web. 25 Mar.
Ivory Trade that is killing the
wonders of Africa. It is an unlawful

thing to kill an elephant for

something that the government
has put a ban on. It is not fair for
humans or the elephants because
of that ban. Its not fair for the
people who put the ban who fight
for the rights of elephants and its
not fair for the elephants that are
dying out because of the Ivory
Trade. The disappearance of
Africas animal wonders is an
injustice that nobody will step
forward to accept. We need to be
involved and not ignore the
situation because in a way
everything is interdependent and
we need to keep that balance. We
should save Africas elephants; its
the only thing well ever do to them
that is a sign of gratefulness.
`