U.S. crushes one ton of ivory in Times Square to quell poaching

NEW YORK, June 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service destroyed more than a ton of elephant ivory in New York's Times Square on Friday in a very public attempt to highlight and stop the illicit ivory trade.

Wildlife officials, lawmakers and bystanders watched as pieces of ivory, from tusks to jewelry, were run through an industrial rock crusher and turned into a sandy powder.

"By destroying this ivory in New York's Times Square, one of the most recognized and visible places in the world, we are lending the elephant crisis the kind of global platform it deserves. With every ivory crush and every piece of federal and state legislation that bans ivory trade, we are sending a message that the United States is not just crushing ivory but crushing the trade for good," said Patrick Bergin, CEO of the African Wildlife Foundation.

In early June, the conservation group Traffic found a "catastrophic" decline of elephants in Tanzania due to uncontrolled poaching. The local government said country's elephant population, one of the largest on the African continent, dropped some 60 percent in five years, from 109,051 in 2009 to 43,330 in 2014. The U.S. is considered the second-largest market for wildlife products, including ivory.

Activists have been ramping up activities to quell poaching and the ivory trade. Scientists this week announced they were able to match the DNA in confiscated ivory to scat samples to pinpoint poaching hotspots.

At the ivory crush, conservation groups pointed to the ivory pile as a reminder of the millions of elephants killed.

"While we're standing here, about six more elephants will die, maybe more, because they're now going after the babies," Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell said. "We're not just crushing ivory. We're crushing the blood ivory market."

In November 2013, six tons of ivory were crushed in Colorado. Since then nine governments have publicly crushed ivory.