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Ivory has been valued since ancient times in art or manufacturing for making a range of items from ivory carvings to false teeth, piano keys, fans, and dominoes. [9] Elephant ivory is the most important source, but ivory from mammoth, walrus, hippopotamus, sperm whale, orca, narwhal and warthog are used as well.
Ivory traders, c. 1912. The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, [1] black and white rhinos, mammoth, [2] and most commonly, African and Asian elephants. Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in Africa and Asia, resulting in restrictions and bans.
Due to poaching to meet high demand for ivory, the African forest elephant population approached critical levels in the 1990s and early 2000s. [ 59 ] [ 60 ] Over several decades, numbers are estimated to have fallen from approximately 700,000 to less than 100,000, with about half of the remaining population in Gabon. [ 61 ]
The density of dentin in elephant tusks is why elephant ivory is more sought after than other animal ivory. Baby elephants have baby tusks that often grow up to two inches before they lose them ...
The illegal ivory trade, along with habitat loss, climate change and other factors, has destroyed the two elephant species in Africa. Tusks from a seizure in Malaysia in 2012 (Malaysia Department ...
The demand for ivory has caused specific animals to become endangered, including the African and Asian Elephant. Ivory is a coveted material throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia that is illustrated in religious objects, art, and demonstrates wealth. In the last thirty years, ivory has been mainly been used in the jewelry and souvenirs markets ...
African elephant ivory became increasingly available in Europe from the 13th century, and the most important centre of carving became Paris, which had a virtually industrial production and exported all over Europe. Secular pieces, or religious ones for lay-people, gradually took over from production for the clergy.
One of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to wild elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia.