We've brought it home to Mozambique-based operations that it's no longer safe for them. Yet the South African government allows a tightly controlled sale of elephant ivory from herds owned by private entrepreneurs, or from elephants that have died in national parks. South Africa may one day join Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia in the export of ivory as well. Poachers shot 102 South African elephants in 1981 alone, but only three in the last two years. Poaching pachyderms, as Maggs describes, is not a job for amateurs.
Elephants are larger and more dangerous than rhinos.
And once the ivory's extracted, it's heavy to carry and hard to conceal. Slow and not terribly aggressive, rhinos on the other hand make easy targets. Traditional healers in eastern Asia sell powder from rhino horn as an analgesic. Rhino horns grow back when trimmed, and the South African government has considered permitting a domestic trade in this product similar to that of ivory, while still protecting wild rhinos from hunting. The country's stance has left most conservationists cold, but Maggs looks at it more pragmatically.