A mammoth task: halting the ivory trade

Elephants are the poster child for the illegal wildlife trade. It is estimated that on average, 55 African elephants per day are killed for their ivory tusks. Humans have coveted ivory for thousands of years, and demand eventually pushed elephants to the brink. International trade in their tusks is now banned, but a new product on the global market could be fuelling the flames for elephants: mammoth tusks. In this episode of Wild Crimes, we'll find out how the trade in the tusks of extinct mammoths is influencing demand for elephant ivory. Are mammoths providing their living relatives with a lifeline, or are their tusks doing more harm than good? Discover more with Museum Research Leader Prof Adrian Lister, Valery Plotnikov from the Academy of Sciences of Yakutia, trade investigator Lucy Vigne and ivory trade research specialist Linda Chou. Learn more about mammoths, elephants and the illegal wildlife crime and support the Natural History Museum's work at nhm.ac.uk/wildcrimes.

You can listen to A mammoth task: halting the ivory trade online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

A mammoth task: halting the ivory trade is an episode from Wild Crimes by The Natural History Museum, London.

This episode is 32:23 long.

This episode was published on Jul 15, 2021.

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