Where does all the ivory go?

March 10, 2008 5:48 PM

What do governments do with seized contraband that cannot legally be bought or sold, cannot be set free, but ought not be simply destroyed? I'm thinking elephant tusks and rain forest hard woods, that sort of thing.
posted by IndigoJones to law & government (9 comments total)

Well they actually invest some time and money into finding where it came from, its then used as evidence in the criminal trials. Beyond that I have no idea :)
posted by Jack Feschuk at 5:59 PM on March 10

South Africa and Namibia auction their ivory.
posted by Frank Grimes at 6:02 PM on March 10

Australian Customs keep a collection of it, and pull out the more portable bits from time to time to take to community events, to display as examples of the sort of things you can't import or travel with.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:09 PM on March 10

A lot of it gets burned.
posted by SlyBevel at 6:46 PM on March 10

Our local Zoo has items pertaining to animals, ivory tusks, cheetah skins, feathers, tortoise shells, coral and other endangered species. The items are shown to the public in an educational setting to help spread the knowledge that these items are illegal and usually result in death to the animal.
posted by JujuB at 7:43 PM on March 10

The international agreement that covers this is called CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). They pretty much have a resolution for everything, including guidelines for how governments should dispose of confiscated specimens.

Disposal of illegally traded, confiscated and accumulated specimens.

Different countries have different implementations.. Generally a lot of things get destroyed (shells, coral, etc), but if it is something really rare or nice, it may be donated to a zoo, aquarium or museum to be used for educational purposes. I know of a couple aquariums that have sea otter pelts obtained this way, as well as coral and seashells.
posted by everybody polka at 7:52 PM on March 10

surely the best thing to do is get them out of circulation. ivory on the market in whatever form just encourages others to go get ivory of their own.
posted by dnc at 3:32 AM on March 11

I know some of the people who do CITES ("sight-ees") seizures in Canada. First, the items get held as evidence for up to a few years until the legal issues are cleared. When the court cases are over, the best, most remarkable stuff gets given to various organizations for use in displays and for education as several have mentioned above. The remainder gets destroyed, which usually means incineration. Inventory is pretty carefully controlled---they don't want it reentering the market.
posted by bonehead at 7:36 AM on March 11

Burning old growth wood. Painful, that.

Thanks to all, most interesting
posted by IndigoJones at 5:11 PM on March 11