Ivory Tusks

Last May, Philippine Bureau of Customs seized 793 kilos of ivory elephant tusks that were being smuggled into the country in a couple of containers coming from Tanzania (where elephants are an endangered species). Coincidentally (?) that same month hundreds of elephant tusks were also seized in Viet Nam, also coming from Tanzania, the equivalent of 700 elephants. The tusks trade for up to $1500 a kilo.

Today we hear that the Philippine government storage facility where the tusks were being kept is missing part of the seized shipment. Only two staff members had access to the storage area and there were no signs of forced entry.

News had been going around that one of these two employees had just bought two new cars and a beautiful house. He has not reported to work since Saturday.

By the way, don't ever do a google image search on "poached elephants". The images of slaughtered, hacked up elephants are hard to bear.

African elephant drawing from Rowland Ward.