Poachers just lost their market, as China has announced a ban on ivory.
Beijing says commercial processing and sale of ivory will be halted by March 31 and trading will be phased out entirely over the following months.
That's great news for elephants, and it's an issue that many remain surprisingly ignorant about: I'll never forget an incident years ago when I was doing display photography for the now-defunct Meier and Frank department stores - in the early 1970s, ivory was still legal in the USA, and the store carried a few pieces in their jewelry department. As I was shooting various displays of non-ivory stuff, a woman was looking at ivory ear-rings and commented about the material coming from endangered animals - to which the sales girl replied, "Oh no, ma'am - ivory is a precious gem!"
I complimented the woman for not buying them.
In unrelated news, thieves in Manitoba have taken to stealing ice-fishing shacks, it being winter and all.
It being Canada, however, the shacks have since been returned.
But speaking of fishing, you can do that here in Oregon free of charge today and tomorrow; no license required. Hope you don't mind freezing temperatures and snow - and no, we don't do ice-fishing shacks here. But ODFW claims to have been stocking a number of lower-elevation lakes with hatchery trout in recent weeks.
Want to know if a lake has hatchery trout in it? Pick up a handful of gravel and toss it in there. If the fish swarm toward it, they're hatchery fish who mistake that for the pelleted food they get fed in the raceways.
