From Huffington Post: NRA Wants to Kill Elephants

Childhood images of Dumbo and family afford elephants an iconic status in the United States and much of the west and their size and apparent human like emotions and characteristics make them ideal charismatic species. In certain parts of Africa elephants are at severe risk of extirpation (for a very thorough discussion of elephant issues check out WWF--   http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/african_elephants/).

 I was reading the news/opinion pages yesterday and came across this piece:
The NRA Is Quietly Fighting For Your Right To Kill Elephants For Their Ivory ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/12/nra-ivory-elephant-hunting_n_5671332.html?utm_hp_ref=miami&ir=Miami). The article is mainly a cheap shot at the NRA (and I am no defender, just think that the article could make a more important point) but points out the difficulty of regulating the trade in a product that is illegal to harvest in one place and legal in another. 

Ivory, taken legally (in Southern Africa for example) or illegally (in the East for example) ends up in the hands of hunters and traders. Because ivory is ivory and figuring out where it comes from is difficult poached ivory leaves the continent often through apparently legit means. This means that many conservation organizations oppose all legalized elephant hunting in Africa, and they have some very strong arguments to support their view. Unfortunately many poor communities in Southern Africa benefit from legal elephant hunts and use the income from the hunts to improve welfare. Total bans harm these folks, but partial bans encourage poaching. These are the type of sticky problems that conservation-with-development proponents encounter these days and it seems as though the solutions rely less on science and logic and more on ethics and values. As long as we have competing values--conservation and hunting ban; welfare and elephant hunting--we will be challenged as above.