Is Ivory Always Wrong?

Yesterday, South Africa held a controversial auction: of elephant tusks, 51 tons to be exact. This auction was sanctioned by the UN body which oversees trade in endangered species; the tusks came from elephants that died naturally or were culled as part of a population control program, the BBC reports.

I am not a vegetarian, I eat meat, and I wear leather. But I cannot condone the killing of an animal simply for purposes of adornment --whether its jewelery from ivory, or clothing from its skin. I am revolted by fur.

But, I have on my wrist a bracelet made of intricately carved walrus ivory, which came from the Alaskan island of Little Diomede. Alaska natives are allowed to use walrus ivory, and in fact, create beautiful works of art using everything from the whiskers to the inner layer of the intestines. (Which can be unrolled into a waterproof material that resembles crushed silk, and is used to make waterproof parkas.)

I am not revolted by my bracelet, or by any of this because I know that the artists that are creating these works are living in communities, if not households, that use every single bit of the animal --they eat what's edible, and use the rest to create clothing, tools, jewelery, art work. (Much of which you can see at the new Alaska House, New York gallery in Soho in New York.) And back to South Africa, if the elephants are not being hunted for their ivory tusks, but are gone already, then what's the ethical case for letting what's left go to waste?

What do you think?

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Comments

[axiomflash]

Directly, it is not immoral, but it is important to look at the bigger picture. By having an interest (buying, selling, discussing the use of endangered animal parts), you are adding to the market. Poachers only exist because there is a market that desires their product. Even if you got your goods in a humane way, it increases demand and decreases supply.

Also I think it is important to realize that when discussing these animals, the primary moral issue is that they are endangered, not whether the way they die is humane. This applies more to your walrus example than the elephant example. When people want Native American walrus-tusk art, it increases the demand and the natives likely kill more walruses for this reason.

I should mention that I am a meat-eater and hunter as well. Its important to remember that the things we do have secondary effects that are more difficult to see.

[InContext]

Sadly, selling legally *harvested* ivory sustains a desire for - and thus a market for - all ivory, most of which is poached. Educate yourselves by checking out a site like Save the Elephants or follow the work of Sam Wasser at the University of Washington who proves the illegal origins of *legally* traded ivory through DNA tracking.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of indigenous Alaskans practicing their crafts on a small scale, but it has very little to do with the massive slaughter of elephants, as many as 38,000, that takes place every year to provide people with meaningless trinkets like bracelets, charms and chess pieces.