Would inventing artificial ivory stop poaching?
Or do we already have artificial ivory?
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No, we already have artificial ivory.
It’s been tried, not working out great.
We have artificial ivory.
There was a piece on NPR last year where a taxidermist re-created ivory so exactly that no-one could tell the difference. They embedded the tusks with transmitters, sold them to smugglers, and tracked their movements.
There have been ivory substitutes for ages. For years, people have heated a straight pin and stuck it into an inconspicuous area of a carving to see if it’s genuine ivory or not – when burned, ivory supposedly smells like burnt hair. I think the Ivory substitutes and synthetics are plenty good for the Western market, but the orientals want the read deal.
Bone is a good substitute, but with the obvious disadvantage of being hollow. I see a lot of Oriental carvings where they have plugged the hole in the bone with a bone plug before they carved.
Oh, so the answer to your question is “No”. Asians demand the real deal, and that’s what they pay top dollar for.
It’s been an epic failure as artificial Ivory doesn’t float and sinks like a rock….booooo
No. Why have a fake when you can have the real thing?
Artificial Ivory isn’t helping any but I did see a news report about something new they’re trying.
It’s a dye which is injected into the Rhino’s horn (does not hurt the animal at all) under the theory that it destroys the value of the horn to the poachers but the animal gets to keep it.
Another thing they were resorting to previously was shearing off the horn before the poachers could get to it. But this basically murilates the poor animal.
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http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/pink-dye-protects-rhinos-from-poachers/
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I have read of genetically engineered / artificially grown ivory and it’s pretty new.
The idea behind it is that since it’s real at a cellular level folks will buy it in lieu of the real thing stolen off the face of a big murdered animal. I think it could work if they can get the costs down.
Artificial ivory wouldn’t work. Artificial elephants filled with snipers and Gatling guns ready to open up on any poachers would be a better idea.
@Buttonstc , That is a great idea. I wonder if tusk discoloration really would prevent poaching. They could raise money by running safaris for the purpose of finding rhinos to apply the dye to.
Just like real medicine isn’t stopping the poaching of rhino horn and tiger penis. There are crazy ass, immoral, selfish /#!@!#$! that pay top money so people poach and sell.
No. Poachers will always poach and animal killers will always kill—for profit and for fun.
@RocketGuy indeed, a lot of ivory would be wasted trying to find portions that are large enough for billiard balls and uniformly having the correct density.
Piano keys, too. The phrase “tickling the ivories” reflects the fact that piano keys used to be made of ivory, too. They are of course all plastic now.
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