Why shouldn't elephants be farmed? Think of all the money their ivory can bring in.
(If they're merely killed in the wild for their ivory then they might go instinct but if they are farmed than they won't go instinct.)
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Those of us who are vegetarian might see that as a step backwards.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Why shouldn't elephants be farmed?
You haven't read Gun, Germs, & Steel, have you? Elephants are not good candidates for domestication. They need large areas to roam, need too much vegetation per animal, and keeping more than one male together is a recipe for disaster.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Also, extinct =! instinct.
Posted by Elmer's Glue (Member # 9313) on :
22 month gestation period.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Why shouldn't elephants be farmed?
You haven't read Gun, Germs, & Steel, have you? Elephants are not good candidates for domestication. They need large areas to roam, need too much vegetation per animal, and keeping more than one male together is a recipe for disaster.
I'm sure they can device some solution. Keep 20 females and one male together, for instance. And I'm sure in Africa plenty of land can be found for these sort of operations. While they're at it they should farm rhinos too.
ivory = $$$$.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Heroin also = $$$$$
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Also, extinct =! instinct.
I know. It was a typo.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Heroin also = $$$$$
Heroin is a destructive drug for humans and their family members. Ivory is a harmless luxury (for humans.) I hope you can appreciate the difference.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Actually, much as I find the idea unnecessary and repugnant, as a thought experiment I am curious: how fast do tusks grow and could you farm them sort of like sheep, where you don't necessarily kill them, must periodically sedate them and cut off their tusks?
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: 22 month gestation period.
Profit is still possible.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
You can have pianos with ivory keys.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
You can also sell the meat of the elephant.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Heroin is a destructive drug for humans and their family members. Ivory is a harmless luxury (for humans.) I hope you can appreciate the difference.
While I draw some distinction between animals and humans, that distinction is largely irrelevant when it comes to domestication and slaughter of animals for something frivolous. Even if the initial farms set up were relatively humane, if profit is the primary motivation then it would only be a matter of time before more "efficient" methods were set up.
To clarify: I am a vegetarian. While I don't necessarily blame individual people who are merely complicit in a socially acceptable practice, I think our methods of factory farming are despicable. I'd also note that I'm okay with humane farming and hunting.
If someone did set up a humane elephant farm that made use of the whole body, I wouldn't really be appalled (there's a lot of worse things I'm appalled by yet that I grudgingly accept) but saying "hey, this system should totally exist so that some random people (presumably other than you, unless you're testing the waters here for an entrepenuerial (sp?) venture) can make money!" strikes me as rather pointless.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: I'm sure they can device some solution. Keep 20 females and one male together, for instance. And I'm sure in Africa plenty of land can be found for these sort of operations. While they're at it they should farm rhinos too.
Devise. But you knew that, right?
And I'm quite sure they cannot. You seem to have no comprehension of the amount of land involved. There's enough trouble trying to make sure their current habitats are not eroded more and more each year -- setting more land aside for them is just not going to happen. And elephants are HUGE. and quite dangerous when angered.
And while I'm a happy carnivore, I find the notion of raising animals for the sole purpose of a few pounds of a luxury item that has many perfectly good synthetic replacements truly horrific.
Only adult elephants have tusks, and it takes years (about 12-14) to reach maturity. Longer for tusks of great length. So, two years pregnancy, and maybe 18 until they're old enough to "harvest"?
Yeah, not workable at all.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: If someone did set up a humane elephant farm that made use of the whole body, I wouldn't really be appalled (there's a lot of worse things I'm appalled by yet that I grudgingly accept) but saying "hey, this system should totally exist so that some random people (presumably other than you, unless you're testing the waters here for an entrepenuerial (sp?) venture) can make money!" strikes me as rather pointless. [/QB]
I'm just throwing the idea out there. Would people be okay with ivory if they came from farms and not the wild?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Heh. By the time you got your first "crop" grown, you probably could have invented some weird cloning process to produce it without the elephant.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
It's not cost effective. It's been tried, I believe. Tusks grow about 5-7 inches a year, max.
Posted by Clive Candy (Member # 11977) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: I'm sure they can device some solution. Keep 20 females and one male together, for instance. And I'm sure in Africa plenty of land can be found for these sort of operations. While they're at it they should farm rhinos too.
Devise. But you knew that, right?
And I'm quite sure they cannot. You seem to have no comprehension of the amount of land involved. There's enough trouble trying to make sure their current habitats are not eroded more and more each year -- setting more land aside for them is just not going to happen. And elephants are HUGE. and quite dangerous when angered.
And while I'm a happy carnivore, I find the notion of raising animals for the sole purpose of a few pounds of a luxury item that has many perfectly good synthetic replacements truly horrific.
Only adult elephants have tusks, and it takes years (about 12-14) to reach maturity. Longer for tusks of great length. So, two years pregnancy, and maybe 18 until they're old enough to "harvest"?
Yeah, not workable at all.
You are under the impression that it's necessary to replicate their exact living conditions. We certainly don't do that for other animals we farm. Why should elephants be any more special?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: You are under the impression that it's necessary to replicate their exact living conditions.
Closely enough that they will thrive, sure. What domesticated animals have such different living conditions than their wild relatives? And how different are they from said relatives?
Also, go back to what I mentioned about elephants being huge and dangerous. That means they trample fences if their living area is too small -- and trample their keepers, too.
Regardless, even if you could somehow keep them penned up in small areas (steady diet of tranquilizer darts, maybe?), the amount of silage they would require on a daily basis is HUGE. Every day, for TWENTY YEARS or longer.
Really, not the money maker you think it is.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I think that would only work if poaching could truly be stopped. If poaching was eliminated, and enforcement was 100% effective, then I think the money would appear, and the price of ivory would skyrocket even more than it has. I think that price however would make poaching more and more difficult to police, even in a hypothetical situation where enforcement is already 100% effective.
Otherwise, poaching will always be a cheaper alternative, and the price for "legal" ivory would be so outlandish, as a necessity given the extreme price required to actually "farm" ivory in captivity, that poaching would likely continue as business as usual. I think it's possible that morally conscious uber-wealthy people might be willing to pay such exorbitant prices for ivory, but if your intention is to "farm" ivory domestically as a method of PROTECTING wild elephants, then I'd say that's not going to happen. Not until you invent some sort of perfect protection method for wild elephants.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I'm actually OK with the idea. If we could make it work.
But Rivka is right -- we can't. There's no way there would enough of a market for the ivory at a high enough price to make it cost-effective.
[ February 28, 2010, 03:25 PM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... Otherwise, poaching will always be a cheaper alternative, and the price for "legal" ivory would be so outlandish, as a necessity given the extreme price required to actually "farm" ivory in captivity, that poaching would likely continue as business as usual ...
Not just poaching. There is still "second-hand" ivory to compete with and regulated ivory sales from naturally deceased elephants (or IIRC when the tusks are taken pro-actively in order to eliminate the reason for poachers to kill elephants) to compete with as well.
Therefore I doubt factory-growing tusks could ever become cost-effective unless there was a luxury market in elephant-meat or some way of "vat"-growing the stuff.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: You haven't read Gun, Germs, & Steel, have you?
Discussions of elephants aside, this is a great book. When asked what 5 books everyone must read, OSC named it as #2.
Posted by SoaPiNuReYe (Member # 9144) on :
Farmed elephants is almost an oxymoron. People really underestimate their intelligence and if they choose to obey somebody 9 times out of 10 its because they want to, not because we make them. It's not nearly as simple as domesticating pigs or cows and they require so much food that costs would probably outweigh the benefits. Adolescent males are incredibly unruly and dangerous. Take this from somebody who has parents who have been around elephants all their life. Honestly I don't think you could make this work, especially if this is African elephants that we are talking about here.
[ February 28, 2010, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: SoaPiNuReYe ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:When asked what 5 books everyone must read, OSC named it as #2.
Do you have a link for that?
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:When asked what 5 books everyone must read, OSC named it as #2.
quote:When asked what 5 books everyone must read, OSC named it as #2.
Do you have a link for that?
At www.geekson.com there is a podcast interview with OSC. It's episode 18, and the interview starts at about 57 minutes in. He doesn't specifically enumerate the books, but GGS was the second one he mentioned.
Why not just keep walruses and narwhals in underwater cages and kill them after harvesting the horns. We can just float them into the ocean when were done with them.
Clive, my question is why would you want to make a bunch of animals suffer just to harvest ivory, which is totally useless to us.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Clive's idea is not all "lets torture the animals for fun and profit." I like the idea that he is looking at a serious problem and considering a market based solution.
Point: There is a demand for elephant Ivory. Point: Elephants are being driven to extinction by poachers and land development.
Farm Raised Ivory could help drive down the price of Ivory to the point where it is not worth the dangers of poaching it.
The complaints so far have been:
1) Cruelty to Animals. True, but no more so than many other ongoing businesses, and much more so than the Poachers.
2) Dangers and difficulties in tending to animals the size, temperament and intelligence of an Elephant. True, but also true that Elephants have been raised for labor in India and other parts of Asia for centuries. Before that they were raised for military purposes (Tank) that Rome and Alexander before Rome all faced. Then there are the modern Circus and Zoo people who raise Elephants on a small scale.
3) The investment would take 20 years to fulfill. If we limited the income streams to only Ivory, then yes, 20 years until a return on investment. However, Clive mentioned a system where all of the animal was used. If we extend that to put the elephant into some productive use during that time, we might be able to work our way to profitability.
Elephant Dung is very good for gardening.
Elephant Tusks do not rely on the fat content of the animal, as do most domesticated animals we slaughter. So we can use the large muscles of the animal for construction, power generation, or other uses.
Entertainment value--but on an industrial Ivory farm where hundreds of Elephants would be needed, I'm not sure how to work that out.
Folks, don't say no just to say no. Consider the possibilities.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Ivory is profitable when taken as a found resource in otherwise unused land. It does not follow that it is profitable as the product of a farm. In a similar vein, we do not produce oil from carbon dioxide and sunlight, although we understand the chemistry; oil is only profitable when taken as a found resource. In the case of oil this will change eventually, since so much of our industry depends on it; that does not appear to be the case for ivory.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
An elephant will consume approximately 500 tons of vegetation over the course of 20 years. That's for just one elephant (I've found sites that claim anywhere between 130 lbs to 700 lbs of food a day. It varies highly between elephants in the wild and elephants in captivity. I used 150 lbs to reach this figure). Would the profit from the elephant carcass, and whatever work can be harnessed from the elephant in that time, be worth 500 tons of vegetation, which could be used for other things?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
The "which could be used for other things" part doesn't necessarily seem relevant if the entire point is to in the end protect elephants.
But the question of 500 tons of vegetation does bring in one of the costs involved.
Also, why again is the 20 year number significant? Elephants live into their 60s don't then? If the point is to continually harvest ivory, why would you go through the trouble of nursing it to adulthood and then kill it? Yes it would take 20 years to produce a first time "crop" but tusks continue to grow until an elephant dies. So realistically, it could be more like 1,500 tons of vegetation over the life of the animal. And you might get what, half a foot of ivory (per tusk, so let's say a foot per elephant a year) out of it? I think you'd probably have to end up buying a wetland/rain forest to get both the land and vegetation necessary to house such a farm, especially if you really want large numbers. The start-up costs would be astronomical, plus you actually need a starting crop of elephants from which to breed and harvest.
Now you might still be able to do that and market a legal form of ivory, but the costs would be equally astronomical to not only cover the cost of creation, but also to include some sort of markup for price. It would cause a massive spike in the price if ivory, only now it's legal! So now we have a Blood Ivory trade, where wild elephants are killed in even larger numbers because of the immense and multiplied value of their ivory, and the ivory itself is smuggled into the legal world trade.
If the whole point is to do this to save the elephant, then this seems like the exact opposite of what you'd really want to do. Doesn't it make more sense to put all that money into increased protection and enforcement against poaching and in security measures for wild life preserves? I think, given the costs involved with the suggested course of action, it'd be a bargain.
Darth_Mauve, no one is saying no just to say no. People are saying no because it sounds so ludicrous, "no" is just the fast and easy answer.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Is it possible to harvest the tusks without killing (or fatally crippling) the animal?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Farm Raised Ivory could help drive down the price of Ivory to the point where it is not worth the dangers of poaching it.
I doubt that farm raised ivory could profitably drive down the price at all.
quote:Elephants live into their 60s don't then? If the point is to continually harvest ivory, why would you go through the trouble of nursing it to adulthood and then kill it? Yes it would take 20 years to produce a first time "crop" but tusks continue to grow until an elephant dies.
With most farmed animals, there is an "correct" age to harvest them for optimum profits -- where if you keep the animal around any longer, it will cost more to feed and house it than any increased benefit.
For example, rabbits are harvested at considerably below their full adult size, because that's what's most economical.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Is it possible to harvest the tusks without killing (or fatally crippling) the animal?
Yeah, I'm still waiting for an answer on that too.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Attach this argument to what we were talking about before. Even attempting to flood the market with legitimate ivory causes damage to wild elephant populations via increased poaching.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy:
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Why shouldn't elephants be farmed?
You haven't read Gun, Germs, & Steel, have you? Elephants are not good candidates for domestication. They need large areas to roam, need too much vegetation per animal, and keeping more than one male together is a recipe for disaster.
I'm sure they can device some solution. Keep 20 females and one male together, for instance. And I'm sure in Africa plenty of land can be found for these sort of operations. While they're at it they should farm rhinos too.
ivory = $$$$.
I don't see any moral problem with it, but it's impractical. And it's devise; not device.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I'm actually OK with the idea. If we could make it work.
But Rivka is right -- we can't. There's no way there would enough of a market for the ivory at a high enough price to make it cost-effective.
QFT. I wonder if there's a way to grow tusks in a lab. I mean, if they can grow meat, why not tusks? And hair (for wigs) and other suchlike things.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Can we grow teeth in labs? That's basically what ivory is.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Meat is a soft tissue; growing it in a nutrient solution works. Don't think that would work nearly as well for hard, low-moisture tissues like hair and ivory.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
I think excellent points have been made. And I'm going to reiterate the most important one.
The reason that we cannot allow elephant farming for ivory is because it will provide a larger market for illegal ivory.
Lets say that farmed ivory costs just 5 times the current price for antique ivory. All of the sudden, the poacher's price jumped a comparable amount. And now they have an easier market to hide it in. They could sell their ivory to a farm who would then sell the ivory hidden in their farmed ivory.
It is very hard to imagine a situation in which farmed ivory would be cheaper than poached ivory.
In terms of other goods, this problem doesn't always arise. There is no significant market for home grown tobacco because industrial tobacco is cheap enough even with taxes. We pay for convenience, for quality, even for ethics. But there's no easy way to ensure the ethics of farmed ivory.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
You can harvest the tusks, BTW. It's done in the wild in some areas already, so that poachers won't kill the wild animals for their tusks.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
I'd be interested to know how much (if at all) that would hinder the elephant's ability to survive in the wild afterwards.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Can we grow teeth in labs? That's basically what ivory is.
Apparently we can. At least in theory.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by dabbler: ... Lets say that farmed ivory costs just 5 times the current price for antique ivory. All of the sudden, the poacher's price jumped a comparable amount. And now they have an easier market to hide it in ...
Interestingly, I will quickly note that there IS a legal market in "new" (latest major sale in 2008) ivory since there are one-off sales of ivory stockpiles every once in a while. However, people have been debating whether this has created an easier market to hide poached ivory in or not.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Mucus -
The article I linked addresses your post remarkably well.
Sean -
Elephants have no natural predators other than man. Lions might kill a young elephant that gets away from the herd, but these elephants generally don't have tusks that could be used for defense anyway. Tusks normally fall off elephants when they're engaged in fighting or from rubbing up against trees. I have no idea how it would affect their eating habits however.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
Yep.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Oh, I must have missed that one. Fair enough, although I'm a lot more pessimistic than the writers of that article.