i suspect a well meaning herd of touchy-feely 'ecologists' got together with a similar flock of politicians in order to share the one brain cell they possessed in order to 'save the ellyfants'. they decided that a massive deployement of nucular level force was required, and being bird-brains (sorry to insult all the birds out there who are much smarter than politicians) they picked the simplist approach. ban the trade in ivory and destroy any they come across being traded. there, problem solved. we are lucky they did not decide the best way to end the trade in elly ivory was to wipe out all the ellyfants. that'd do it.
reminds me of a tale i was told in my USCG days about an expedition one of our icebreakers took to the south polar seas to support a scientific expedition to study a small group of a species of seal going extinct so they could find out why. there apparently were only five left a male and 4 females. they found them, darted them, took their measurements and sadly two of the seals had died from overdoses of anaesthesia. included the male. the study of course sadly noted that the three females were the last of their species and the seals had no hope of recovery. i concluded that scientific studies cause extinctions.
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