{"id":246,"date":"2014-02-17T08:56:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T08:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ANIMALPAGES.COM\/animals\/?p=246"},"modified":"2025-07-09T00:08:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T07:08:58","slug":"elephant-ivory-sales-finally-banned-in-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/elephant-ivory-sales-finally-banned-in-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Elephant Ivory Sales Finally Banned in U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On February 11, 2014, the White House announced an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2014\/02\/11\/fact-sheet-national-strategy-combating-wildlife-trafficking-commercial-b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">executive order against the illegal wildlife trade<\/a>\u00a0that includes a complete ban on the commercial sale of ivory. Owning ivory will still be OK \u2014 if it was purchased legally in the first place \u2014 but selling ivory will be illegal, unless it\u2019s an antique of over 100 years old (which sellers will have to prove).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ivory imports have been banned worldwide since 1989, with an exception for pieces dated prior to that year. However, without expensive testing, it\u2019s hard to tell how old ivory really is. This loophole creates a perfect cover for a black market of newly poached elephant parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat trade is decimating iconic animal populations,\u201d President Obama writes in a letter introducing the new\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/docs\/nationalstrategywildlifetrafficking.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">National Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking<\/a>. \u201cBecause of the actions of poachers, species like elephants and rhinoceroses face the risk of significant decline or even extinction. But it does not have to be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe elephant poaching crises reached its peak last year with about 30,000 of these amazing species slaughtered for their tusks. Seizure data collected for 2014 so far shows that this year could be even worse,\u201d according to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/switchboard.nrdc.org\/blogs\/epepper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Elly Pepper<\/a>, a policy advocate for NRDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pepper goes on to say, \u201cMost people don\u2019t realize that the U.S. is the second biggest ivory market in the world, with epicenters in New York, California, and Hawaii. By creating this national strategy, the U.S. is recognizing that we are part of the problem and that we\u2019re going to step up our efforts to end this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onearth.org\/articles\/2014\/02\/obama-bans-ivory-elephants-everywhere-rejoice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read more on OnEarth.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-2571651847880215\"\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\n<!-- banner ad -->\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:block\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2571651847880215\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"7178535257\"\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On February 11, 2014, the White House announced an\u00a0executive order against the illegal wildlife trade\u00a0that includes a complete ban on the commercial sale of ivory. Owning ivory will still be&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,34],"tags":[44,146,42,73,95,31],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal-news","category-animal-tales","tag-african-animals","tag-animal-news","tag-conservation","tag-elephants","tag-endangered-animals","tag-wild-animals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1280px-African_Bush_Elephant_Mikumi.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalpages.com\/animals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}