Extinct mammoths could be given protected status in bid to save elephants

Proposal is intended to protect African elephants from being poached for their tusks

Lucy Campbell

Thu 10 Jan 2019 18.36 GMTLast modified on Fri 11 Jan 2019 12.45 GMT

The long-extinct woolly mammoth could gain protected status in an unprecedented attempt to save the African elephant from the global ivory trade.

If approved, the protection of the mammoth under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) could prove vital in saving its modern relatives. The proposal by Israel would close a loophole that enables the trafficking of illegal elephant ivory under the guise of legal mammoth ivory, which is almost identical in appearance.

“They are often intermingled in shipment and retail displays, and are fashioned in a similar style. To the untrained eye it’s very difficult to distinguish between them,” said Iris Ho, senior specialist in wildlife programmes and policy at Humane Society International (HSI). “There is currently no international regulatory regime to track and monitor the commercial trade in mammoth ivory.”

An Appendix II level of protection for the prehistoric mammoth, which has been extinct for 10,000 years, would subject the mammoth ivory trade to strict regulation. It would be the first time an extinct species has been listed as protected under Cites.

The international trade in elephant ivory has been banned since 1990, but demand for it still leads to the deaths of 30,000 African elephants every year.

Kitty Block, the president of HSI, said: “With ivory traffickers exploiting the long-extinct mammoth so they can further exploit imperilled elephants, nations must unite to end the poaching epidemic and ensure all ivory markets are closed. The time to act is now, before we lose them forever.”

A number of jurisdictions have already prohibited the sale of mammoth ivory products altogether, including New York and Hawaii. India has also banned the import of mammoth ivory.

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