Israel proposes tougher regulations on mammoth trade

Israel wants tougher regulations to save mammoths from extinction.

Trade in mammoth ivory has grown exponentially as a legal alternative to elephant ivory. And that’s why Israel is sounding the alarm bell now. But not everyone is up for it.

“I have to say that I am against this initiative (to list Woolly mammoth as an endangered species) because the mammoth tusk has probably completely replaced the elephant tusk on the international market and it will help to save elephants from extinction”, said Valery Plotnikov, Chief Researcher of the Mammoth Fauna Study Department of the Academy of Sciences of Yakutia.

Africa’s elephant population has plummeted from more than 3 million in 1900 to an estimated 415,000 today.

Legal domestic ivory markets are shrinking but loopholes in the trade of mammoth ivory mean elephants are still at risk.

A recent assessment by Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), confirmed that poaching remains a threaten to the survival of the African elephant.

AP