The problem can be better solved by getting the demand under control. China, one of the historic worst offenders, actually managed to do so [1], but Japan's legal market [2] still entices poachers and smugglers (who supply the black market in China [3]).

[1] https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/demand-for-elep...

[2] https://asiatimes.com/2022/05/japan-sends-wrong-message-on-i...

[3] https://us.eia.org/campaigns/wildlife/elephants/japan-ivory/

Vietnam is another huge market, especially for rhino horn.

Elephant tusks are incisor teeth, nerves and all. They continue growing in length during their lifetime, but would be insanely painful if cut off, and cannot grow back.

> I always wonder if the better solution isn't to re-legalize ivory and rhino horn. All the game farms have room full of the stuff. Dumping that onto the market will kill the price, at the same time there is suddenly a financial incentive to keep the animals safe.

Until that stock runs out and then it is back to square #1.

It's working for the buffalo. They were endangered until someone realized you could sell their meat as an "exotic" meat for more than a burger. Now the buffalo are all over the place.

To paraphrase CGP Grey it turns out the best evolutionary advantage is being useful to humans.

If any of the execs of Panda Express are reading this give me a call I got a big idea for your brand.

Nah, legalize poacher hunting. Most dangerous game and such.

> Nah, legalize poacher hunting. Most dangerous game and such.

Yeah that would totally not endanger(more than they already are) indigenous people living there. After all everyone knows how poachers look like.

We solve that with poacher-poacher-hunters. And it continues forever!

Non-lethal methods only, obviously. It's basically a combination between bounty hunting and citizen's arrest laws. Not saying it couldn't be abused but it's not impossible to imagine it working. You might not even need bounties if people saw it as a sport.

It's either that or potentially corrupt park rangers doing it - it's not like the existing system works great for anyone involved.

> Dumping that onto the market will kill the price

I read a story a while back that some folks are dumping synthetic ivory onto the market to make prices fall.

This ends up making the situation worse. Legalization substantially increases demand far beyond what can be produced legally and ironically the value actually goes up and results in even more of the illegal product being produced. Furthermore it now becomes very difficult to distinguish between the legal and illegal product, providing criminals with an easy cover to launder the product.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w22314

Statistics Canada has reported that after the legalization of weed, the black market has actually grown quite substantially (in absolute terms).

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medica...

At any rate, the point is that making things legal or available can often paradoxically significantly increase demand for the illegal product and in the process make it much easier for the black market to operate.

And just to add in some controversy to the discussion, the same is true of prostitution. Almost all places that have legalized prostitution also have significantly higher rates of human trafficking including underage prostitutes.

God bless them. I don't what makes people want ivory in the first place. Pure evil

The solution to a problem is never the commercialization of sentient beings.

You'll have a 90 degree uphill battle if you want to convince people of that in general -- cows, chickens, goats, lab rats, all sorts of insects, bees, all pets, harvesting various animals for medicine.

many uphill battles have been worth fighting before. this won’t be the last.

It saved the Buffalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison#Livestock

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

If you care about the species giving humans an incentive to raise/protect them is pretty effective. If you care about the individual animal this is the worst thing you could do.

> The solution to a problem is never the commercialization of sentient beings.

Forbidding agriculture would not solve any of our problems.

Unless you are trying to say that hum "all sentient beings are equal, but some are more equal than the other".

agriculture !== animal agriculture

"Sentient" is a conveniently empty term to say "It has senses. Can detect changes in the environment". Not more, not less. The term is being abused lately as a substitute for "self-conscious" in a straw man fallacy. We can argue that <random cute animal> is not self-conscious, but suddenly what we are arguing is "has it senses?", a fact that can't be denied.

Every animal known, every fungus known and of course every plant and algae known by us are sentient.

This is not an honest move, in my opinion.

Is just a pseudo-religious term to upgrade some organisms that we like to demigod level --and-- justify retaliation, (because the real underlying force under all this rhetoric is power acquisition; is exactly the same construction as "If you eat pork you will be punished because god says that I'm allowed to punish you").

While I don’t think the general scientific consensus agrees with you that every plant and fungus is sentient, we can pick a different word if you prefer. The ability to suffer is the important aspect, after all.

As for the part of your comment that claims using the word “sentient” is pseudo religious and used to wield power over others… I think you’re reading far, far too much into it. I don’t think anyone is using sentience as a tool to justify punishment over anyone else. In fact, it tends to be the people that deny sentience that end up punishing others, for merely belonging to different species!

TL;DR Let’s not commercialize anyone that can suffer. Historically it hasn’t gone well.

> I don’t think the general scientific consensus agrees with you that every plant and fungus is sentient

If you find a single scientist claiming the opposite, she/he is probably a genius in some field, but I grant you that is illiterate on basic biology.

The global scientific consensus is that plants and fungi react --very fast-- and accurately to any changes in the environment and take complex and strategic decisions all the time about what they perceive. There are zillions of examples that prove that.

Lets take for example this tiny fish moving its tail fast toward a light spot in the sea bottom and then deciding if it likes the place or just jump and go away. It this a sentient organism? Most people would say Yes.

Well, this is not a fish, in fact is a young Kelp deciding where to settle.

Just to make sure we aren’t getting stuck in pointless semantic argument: if someone doesn’t water their plant for 2 weeks and it slowly dies, do you treat them as you would someone who doesn’t feed their dog?

Do you want to argue semantics or do you want to discuss the actual content?