Symbolic act of destroying more than one US ton of ivory seeks to ‘crush any hopes by poachers that they will profit by killing off our Earth’s elephants’

The US government destroyed more than one US ton (907kg) of “blood ivory” before crowds in New York’s Times Square on Friday, in a move designed to signal a dramatic crackdown on the illegal trade.

The display was co-ordinated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the New York state department of environmental conservation, together with a coalition of wildlife conservation groups.

Cristián Samper, chief executive of the Wildlife Conservation Society, one of the groups in the coalition, said: “We are not just crushing illegally poached ivory but we are crushing the bloody ivory market. We are crushing any hopes by the poachers that they will profit by killing off our Earth’s majestic elephants. Criminals take notice.”

US interior secretary Sally Jewell added: “If we want our grandchildren to grow up in a world where they can see elephants in the wild, we owe it to them to shut down the market that fuels poachers, and to bring shame to people around the world who buy these products.”

The global poaching trade is at its highest in decades, with tens of thousands of African elephants killed every year – more than 100,000 between 2011 and 2014. According to the USFWS, the slaughter outstrips the rate at which the species can reproduce. Experts have warned that there could be as little as five years left to save elephants from extinction in the wild.

“While we’re at this event, about six more elephants will die,” said Jewell. “Maybe more, because they’re now going after the babies.”

The US is the world’s second-largest market for ivory after China, and still permits the trade of ivory acquired before a global ban enforced in 1989. President Barack Obama attempted in 2014 to ban all ivory sales, but environmentalists are still waiting for it to be outlawed completely.

Fresh ivory is often indistinguishable from antique, and the antique market is often used as a cover for illegal sales. Reform efforts were derailed by interest groups including the National Rifle Association – which said a ban would be a disaster for owners of antique ivory-inlaid firearms – and the music industry, which complained of difficulties faced by musicians who play antique instruments.

Curtailing the illegal ivory trade has been an urgent issue for the Obama administration, for which the issue is as much about national security as conservation. Wildlife trafficking – not just involving elephants but also tigers, gorillas and rhinoceroses – earns an estimated $19bn annually for terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army and al-Shabaab.

The administration is now working on a compromise, said Leigh Henry, a wildlife trafficking specialist at the World Wildlife Fund. One simple step would involve reversing the burden of proof. Rather than requiring authorities prove a suspect antique is indeed illegal, as is now customary, sellers would need to document their ivory’s provenance.

Also crucial, said Alex Rhodes, chief executive of Stop Ivory, was for countries, companies and NGOs to support the Elephant Protection Initiative. Launched by eight African countries in 2014, the initiative would shut down domestic ivory markets in countries where sales are still legal, and which now serve as entry points for ivory eventually sold internationally.

There is also much that citizens can do. The Wildlife Conservation Society and other conservation groups are petitioning Craigslist – on which postings for $1.4m of ivory, much of it almost certainly illegal, were recently documented – to enforce its its own rules against the sale of animal parts.

While it is easy to be angry with poachers, said Henry, they are only the most obvious of the people responsible for killing elephants. There are also the middlemen who facilitate the trade, organized crime rings and ultimately the consumers who make it all possible.

Many people, said Henry, still do not quite make the connection between buying an ivory bracelet and the death of an elephant: a creature which lives in a complex society and possesses thoughts and feelings not so different from our own.

“They have families like we do,” she said. “They hurt like we do. They mourn their dead like we do.”

Those who criticise such acts of destruction as seen on Friday, meanwhile, warn that they can drive up prices and stimulate trafficking. Kelly Aylward, director of the Washington office of the Wildlife Conservation Society, countered that such events demonstrate the ivory has no monetary value.



“Events like this are really important,” said Aylward. “We want to let the American public know they should not be buying ivory and to send a message to other governments that the best way to manage illegally obtained ivory is to actually destroy it. It sends a signal that there is no monetary value to the ivory,” said Aylward.

New York’s public crush is the second in two years in the US and one of several recent symbolic events – including those in France, Belgium, the UK and Hong Kong – as part of a growing movement to raise awareness of the issue. Last year 46 nations signed a global accord pledging to end the illegal wildlife trade. In 2013, six US tons (5,400kg) were destroyed in Denver, Colorado, on Obama’s orders.



Two weeks ago more than 1,400lb (662kg) of confiscated ivory was publicly crushed in Beijing, as the Chinese government committed to phase out the domestic manufacture and sale of ivory products. Conservationists lauded the move as “the single greatest measure” taken to fight the illegal trade.

The crush in Times Square comes as the Tanzanian government launches a campaign calling for an end to the poaching crisis.

Lazaro Nyalandu, minister of natural resources and tourism, said at the launch in Dar es Salaam on Thursday: “Elephants are at the top of the ‘wish list’ for many tourists who come to this country, and tourism generates over 17% of our gross domestic product. Our elephants are a great asset to this country in many ways, and my government is determined to stop the slaughter. We want to enlist the help of all of our citizens to stop the theft of our national heritage.”

Tanzania’s elephant population – one of Africa’s largest – has plummeted by a “catastrophic” 50% in the past five years, according to a recent census. Tanzania’s international black market is Africa’s largest source of poached ivory. Mozambique’s elephants have suffered a similar fate, with poachers responsible for the death of half the population in the past five years.