Home

On:

The growing international ban on the trade of ivory from elephant tusks has been increasing the focus on harvesting the illicit material from an unusual source: the tusks of long-extinct mammoths, preserved in the frozen Siberian tundra. Out of the 72 tons of mammoth ivory exported by Russia in 2017, 80 percent was to China–the world’s largest market for the substance–and now that China has instituted a ban on their ivory trade, the market for frozen mammoth tusks may be heating up.
read more

On:

In response to the critical decline in the numbers of African and Asian elephants due to habitat loss and poaching, a geneticist is proposing the creation of a hybrid species that is a cross between one of the existing elephant species and a long-extinct wooly mammoth, to allow them to inhabit a broader range of habitats. Additionally, the researcher is proposing that these new creatures be given further genetic tweaks to offer them other traits, such as smaller tusks to make them less attractive to ivory poachers.
read more

On:

We do not have to look far in our immediate environments to find an example of an animal who is being confined, suppressed, or treated as a commodity. Despite a constantly increasing awareness of animal rights, they are still regarded as "lesser beings" when compared to the human race.
read more

On:

The atomic bomb testing of the Cold War years may be long over, but it turns out that some unexpected good has come of the radiation they left behind: it may help put the poachers of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns in jail, and stop this horrific illegal trade. The reason is that faint trace elements from the bomb tests have worked their way up the food chain into the bones, teeth, tusks and hair of animals, including animals whose remains are now illegal to trade. To know whether or not a tusk is illegal, its age must be determined, and measuring their radiation signatures can pinpoint this age of these tusks to within an accuracy of about 4 to 16 months.
read more