4 ms·

What's stopping ivory farms from being opened in countries with local demand for ivory?

• dpark 10y ago
  Expense. Raising elephants/rhinos is probably extremely expensive, especially when you consider how little ivory you get from an elephant raised for, say, 10 years. Poaching is only lucrative because the poachers don't bear the cost of raising the livestock. Also if you tried to establish a farm where you raised elephants for ivory, the moral outrage would almost certainly get you shut down, with an new law if no existing ones covered it. The "countries with local demand for ivory" are in general countries that have made ivory trade largely illegal already, because most of the population agrees it's pretty repugnant.
  • giarc 10y ago
    Not to mention that creating a farm for elephants would make a great target for poachers. No one would take on that risk of raising an elephant for 25 years, only to have a poacher kill it and take the ivory (and all the elephants value).