I-Team: Boston A Top Destination For Illegal Ivory
BOSTON (CBS) - The poaching of elephants for their tusks has become an environmental disaster for Africa.
Despite an international ban on the trade of ivory, more than 100,000 African elephants have been killed in just the last few years. One environmental group estimates 96 are slaughtered each day.
Lou Perrotti, head of conservation programs at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, said the African elephant is in big trouble right now. "We could actually see the loss of that amazing creature in our lifetime as the rate they are being poached."
Black market ivory can sell for as much as $1,500 a pound. It's estimated the overall market is worth $10 billion a year.
Perrotti said the poachers are getting increasingly ruthless. "They are even killing vultures, poisoning vultures, so the vultures in the air don't signal and give away their position."
The biggest market for illegal ivory is China, followed by the United States. One study by an environmental advocacy group once found Boston to be the 5th largest American import market.
Officials with US Customs and Border Protection keep a constant eye for the contraband on the Boston waterfront.
Agent Angel Portalin said, "We scrutinize importers from different areas of the world, different areas of the market, and the international market that might be susceptible to bringing those items into the United States."
Right now, only ivory items produced before 1989 can be traded in the US. The Obama administration is now writing tougher standards.
Environmentalists want a full ban, because authentication is so tough. As Perrotti explained, "If you have a legal trade, it allows for people to be able to front illegal ivory through those legal trades. So it is important that we have that, like I said, nobody needs a piece of ivory more than an elephant."
The I-Team went shopping and found that it is hard to determine whether an item is ivory or not, let alone how old it is. One shop owner told us a pendant was ivory, but wouldn't provide any other details. Another store claimed figurines were made out of another material altogether.
On websites, jewelry and trinkets are often called 'faux ivory' which experts say can be code for the real thing.
"It's a hard thing to enforce," explained Perrotti.
Ivory seized in Boston was part of a national crushing program, to take it off the market altogether. Similar symbolic acts are being repeated across the world, in hopes of saving these animals before it is too late.
John Scanlon, the Secretary-General of CITES, a global watchdog group that provided the impetus for the 1989 ban, said, "This is decimating the African elephant population and we will soon see local extinctions in some areas."
New Jersey and New York have adopted anti-ivory laws that exceed the parameters of the federal guidelines. There has not been an effort like that in Massachusetts to date.
Send tips for the I-Team to iteam@cbsboston.com or call 617-779 TIPS
MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON