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What Elephants Teach Us About
Consumption and Extinction
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In a way, our modern understanding of extinction starts with the elephant.
It was while studying fossilized teeth of two different elephant ancestors, the
mammoth and the mastodon, that scientists first became aware of the fact that
species could die out and become forever extinct. In 1796, French naturalist
George Cuvier compared mastodon and mammoth tooth fossils to the teeth of
modern African and Asian elephants, positing that the teeth belonged to species
that were “lost” in the past. This was a bold, new revelation—one that stood in
stark contrast to attitudes of the time. The massive consumption of ivory in the
1800s was unprecedented; with delicate fans, billiard balls, hair combs and ivory
veneer piano keys being made of the tusks elephants use as tools for eating,
drinking and breathing.
In a Connecticut newspaper, published the same year as Cuvier’s hypothesis, one
observer wrote:
The Elephant is the largest, the strongest, the most sagacious, and the
longest-lived of all brute creation. The species is numerous, does not
decrease, and is dispersed over all of the southern parts of Asia and
Africa.
Elephants were indeed seen as innumerous. By 1850, American manufacturers
were killing the animals in droves. A billiard ball company boasted it had brought
down 1,140 elephants.
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An elephant ivory folding fan, (above: from the early 1800s) was an essential accessory in a woman's wardrobe.
(NMAH)
But at the same time, the burgeoning American conservation movement was
gaining momentum. One champion, President Teddy Roosevelt, designated five
national parks during his eight years as commander-in-chief. In February 1909,
Roosevelt convened the North American Conservation Conference, the first ever
international meeting on conservation policy.
Dubbed the “conservation president,” despite his reputation as an avid hunter,
Roosevelt “embodied the dilemma of how to both use and preserve nature,”
advances a new exhibition “Elephants and Us: Considering Extinction,” now on
view in the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery at the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of American History.
If fact in March 1909, just one month after the conservation conference,
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Huge numbers of elephant tusks, ideal for their strength, were manufactured into billiard balls in the 19th
century, (NMAH)
Roosevelt led a Smithsonian Institution expedition to Kenya, killing 512 animals,
including eight elephants, as part of an effort to bring taxonomic specimens to a
new Smithsonian museum, known today as the National Museum of Natural
History, which opened its doors June 20, 1911. The practice of displaying
taxonomy in museums to help the public understand the need to preserve these
species was just taking shape.
By the 1950s, nearly 250 elephants were killed every day. In 1973, the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
was signed. The international agreement was made to regulate wildlife trade in
order to ensure the survival of a species. By 1978, African elephants would be
protected under CITES, however, it would later be found that the legislation was
inadequately protecting the now endangered species.
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Aslice of an ivory tusk shows pencil marks with the shapes of the backs of hair brushes, drawn in prior to
manufacturing. (NMAH)
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the African Elephant Conservation Act
into law, banning the importation into the U.S. of all elephant ivory, with the
exception of hunting trophies. Within the first days of the law’s implementation,
under President George H.W. Bush in 1989, more than a dozen countries
followed suit, introducing similar bans.
The document—and many other historic goods and artifacts that represent the
history of elephant conservation and ivory consumption—are on now view in the
show.
“This exhibition places the human-elephant relationship in the context of
American history,” says the show’s curator Carlene Stephen:
“Within a timespan
of about 150 years, Americans transitioned from being mass consumers of ivory
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Pianists preferred the feel of ivory on the keys and hundreds of thousands of pianos were sold between 1850
and 1930. (NMAH)
goods to enacting legal measures aimed at supporting elephant conservation. Yet
these recent efforts may not be enough to counter centuries of consuming ivory.”
In the last century, the African elephant population has decreased by almost 90
percent, with an estimated 415,000 remaining as of 2016. They are considered
vulnerable under the IUCN’s Red List.
‘The worldwide demand for ivory goods, however, remains high, and efforts to
stop poaching and protect elephants continue. The illegal ivory trade is bolstered,
in part, by the very thing meant to protect it because it is still legal to sell ivory if
it can be shown that an item preceded the African Elephant Conservation Act. It
is no simple task to discern manufacturing dates, however. Still, conservationists
and world leaders are sending a clear message: there is zero tolerance for
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Elaborate combs (above: a hair ornament possibly worn by First Lady Abigail Adams) made from elephant ivory
were symbolic of luxury and class. (NMAH)
harvesting these creatures for their tusks.
In 2013, 2015 and 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crushed tons of ivory
goods seized from tourists, illegal traders and smugglers. Their intent was to
devalue black market ivory. The practice drew criticism from museum curators
who remain concerned about preserving the cultural heritage of indigenous
artisans, who have been carving ivory for centuries. In 2015, two museum
curators including one from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art
were asked to examine confiscated ivory and found two intricately carved African
side flutes among the loot. One they suspected was the handiwork of a specific
Nigerian tribe. In a 2015 interview with Smithsonianmag.com senior curator
Bryna Freyer compared the experience to deciphering the puzzle of cultural
history to a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle.
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Ernst Moore, a Connecticut ivory trader, poses among Arab and Indian merchants and African caravan tusk
porters in Zanzibar around 1900. (Pratt, Read Corporation Records, Archives Center, NMAH)
“When this stuff is lost, we lose a chance at better understanding the people who
made the object,” she said. “You think OK, we'll get rid of [these pieces]. It’s not
going to make a difference, because there are 498 other pieces. But you never
know which is the piece that’s going to really help you understand.”
Tegal ivory trade is just one adversary in the modem fight for elephant
preservation. But habitat destruction, poaching and climate change all threaten
the charismatic megafauna’s survival, even at a time when scientists are still
working to understand their natural history and biology. In some places,
elephants are dying faster than they can reproduce; an African elephant’s
gestation period is almost two years long.
That’s one reason why researchers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo are closely
studying elephant reproduction. In an effort to think about elephant preservation
in a new way, they are essentially asking: How do we make more elephants? As
well as, how do we keep the ones we have?
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The forward-looking research is highlighted in the new exhibition with the
display of enrichment toys used at the Zoo to keep the elephants active. In
previous work, they found that stress is a major reason for failed breeding in
captive populations. One way to lessen their stress is to engage them in activities
that stimulate their minds and ultimately, keep them happy.
So, yes, our understanding of extinction may have begun with elephants and their
ancestors, but as we fight to save this species, they are powering our
understanding of conservation success.
“Elephants and Us: Considering Extinction” is on view tn the Albert H. Small
Documents Gallery at the Smithsontan’s National Museum of American History.
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