Raúl Grijalva: “Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service destroyed a 1-ton stockpile of illegal elephant ivory. Most of it was…”

“Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service destroyed a 1-ton stockpile of illegal elephant ivory. Most of it was seized up from a Philadelphia antique dealer named Victor Gordon. For at least 9 years, Gordon imported and sold ivory from freshly killed African elephants in violation of U.S. law and the laws of the countries where the elephants were poached and the ivory stolen. How did he get away with this for so long? The ivory was doctored so that it looked old enough to pass through a loophole in the enforcement of the African Elephant Conservation Act, a law that was passed in 1989 to end the commercial import and export of ivory. While a ton of ivory was confiscated, there is no way to know how much Gordon had sold during the previous decade or where it is now. All we know for certain is all of it was illegal, all of it is nearly impossible to distinguish from antique ivory, and anyone who bought it from Gordon, resells it, or buys it from a new owner is contributing to the ongoing slaughter of elephants and the criminal trafficking of ivory that supports organized crime and terrorism. This has got to stop. How many more Victor Gordons are out there? The amount is a question that can't be answered. The amount of ivory seized from his shop represents 100 elephants, roughly the same number killed every day in Africa.…”