Originally, CITES allowed these four countries to commercially export only hides, but in 2007 it allowed commercial exports of finished leather goods, as well as from South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. In the meantime, visitors can take home the Zimbabwean elephant leather goods they buy there. Elephant leather strap of an old handbag from the 20s. Leather is the shrunken skin of elephant ears and elephant leather of the elephant`s body. The boom in the hide trade comes at a time when more and more countries around the world are closing their ivory markets. China banned ivory in early 2018. The UK announced in April that it would ban the sale of ivory and Hong Kong announced it would end sales in 2021. (The Obama administration introduced a ban on trade in African elephant ivory in 2016. The ban prohibits the import of the largest ivory into the United States and the sale of ivory across state borders, but does not apply to sales of ivory within state borders. It also includes exceptions, such as antiques older than 100 years and items containing small amounts of ivory. It still allows the importation of sport hunting elephant trophies at the rate of two per hunter per year.) About 30,000 African elephants are killed by poachers every year for their ivory, so some people are shocked to learn that elephant hide leather can be legally exported and sold worldwide. Every day, 100 elephants are killed for their tusks, and conservationists say that if we don`t act now, African elephants could become extinct by 2020. Fortunately, our world powers are waking up to this tragedy and enacting stricter laws to restrict the ivory trade.
However, while world leaders have focused on ivory, imports of elephant skin and leather into the United States have more than doubled in the past 10 years. “We have no confidence in the Zimbabwean government`s wildlife management, whether it`s trophy hunting, ivory, poaching control or pelt exports,” says Iris Ho, program manager at Humane Society International, which specializes in elephant issues. “The commitment of the United States and Fish and Wildlife Services to protect African elephants by destroying the ivory market is commendable. However, by continuing to trade furs and other elephant parts, the message is less effective, as the U.S. still supports the trade and slaughter of elephants in exchange for fashion accessories and status symbols (boots, wallets, belts, etc.). This contradictory attitude undermines conservation efforts because of the broader impact on public perception. People may rightly wonder why it is so important to protect elephants when it is legal to make shoes from them. “Remarkably, the number of African elephant skins imported into the U.S. is increasing dramatically (from an average of 797 per year at the beginning of this period to an average of 2,123 per year at the end),” LaFontine said.
“If you`re looking for the hardest leather and strongest boots, the elephant is the skin for you, because nothing compares to the strength of a custom elephant cowboy boot.” However, there are two sides to this story. Ivory is downright illegal, no matter what. There is no legal way to harvest it. Ivory is only obtained from poachers and buying or selling ivory is illegal. Elephant leather, on the other hand, can only be purchased from sellers from legally slaughtered (selectively slaughtered) elephants. I hated using the word “shot,” but I wanted to use the correct definition of the word. In 2016, in response to petitions calling for better protection of African savannah and forest elephants, the Fish and Wildlife Service referred a proposal to list them as two “endangered” species rather than a single “threatened” species for scientific consideration and possible future action. This change would likely block the importation and sale of skin and other body parts. But the agency denied the claim that all such parts should now be banned. “There is no information to suggest that the commercial use of elephant parts and products other than ivory has had an impact on rates or patterns of illegal killing of elephants,” the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded.
Masha Kalinina, an expert on international wildlife trade policy at the Humane Society, notes that this second concern is particularly urgent as China introduces a comprehensive ivory ban that will come into effect with the New Year. “Companies are smart,” she says. “I wouldn`t be surprised if marketing shifted from ivory to skin products. That`s why our goal is to ban all wildlife products. The demand is insatiable and moves from one article to another. You can see this in the way companies react to restrictions. That`s why we should cherish live elephants, not for their parts. But, Ho says, “there are many more well-known and widely used alternatives than elephant skins for treating these diseases.” She believes that the import and sale of African elephant skins for medicinal purposes is “probably a plan invented by traders and traders”.
If you have legally hunted and killed an elephant yourself, you may be able to take its skin and tusks home. Under current law, the United States allows you to import hunted elephant products as trophy products from four countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. First, you need an export permit issued by the CITES office of the country where the elephant was killed. If you obtain such an export permit, you will need an import permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Despite the fact that elephants are an endangered species, people can buy elephant leather at the touch of a button. You can find products such as bags, belts, shoes, and even elephant leather car interiors on Amazon, eBay, and a variety of other online stores. Because while killing an elephant for its tusks is a serious crime, it is often completely legal for its skin. It`s not entirely accurate to say, as leather merchant Rojé Exotics` website does, that “game reserves are the source of all legally traded African elephant skins,” making the culture, the word often used by advocates of commercial use of animals, “very similar to our deer season in the United States.” Nevertheless, elephant skin is only a “small specialty” for him, as for many other exotic leather merchants. Henry Slaughter, a Florida-based butcher and importer, calls it “a sideline” to his main alligator and ostrich lines. Sometimes we get elephant leather. Usually not in large quantities, but if we find a good section, we grab it quickly.
People sometimes wonder how it is legal to get elephant skins, and it`s a legitimate question. But in fact, CITES allows the legal sale of skins. Poaching of endangered elephants for the illegal ivory trade, which gives people this confusion, but at the moment the sale of skins is completely legal. This is also a good thing because elephant skin is one of the hardest and smoothest skins you can buy. The texture is dense and slightly bumpy. As a rule, you can also see remnants of large wrinkles on the skin. The leather of the ears is slightly softer and velvety. The colors are usually in the neutral spectrum, consisting of earth tones and speckled black accents that emphasize the pores and wrinkles of the skin. This leather is really one of the hardest you can also buy. Aside from a crazy accident, elephant leather items will last at least a few generations. This does not include the thousands of other parts and goods that were simply counted and not measured, as well as small quantities from other countries and illegal exports.
While there is no significant overlap in CITES data, at least 70,000 African elephants appear to have donated their hides to the legal global hide trade over the past decade – about twice as many as what is poached for ivory each year. Handmade: Yes Material: Elephant skin and calf skin Color: granite and black Details: chain seams and crossbred cord pattern on the upper, elephant pull strap, toe medallion Toe type: Rios `TK` Heel type: Rios `3 Shorts` Heel Outsole: Leather Insole: Leather with padded insoles Heel height: 1 3/8″ Tree Height: 13″ Manufactured: Mercedes, Texas Elephant Family also tracked internet sales and found active sales of pearls and skin powders through open online forums such as Baidu and private platforms like WeChat. Many brands source furs, feathers and skins from factory farms that breed exotic species and market endangered species legally bred in captivity from the wild. The absence of strict regulatory measures makes it possible to pass off illegally acquired hides as legal. In the United States, fish and wildlife argue that the trade in hide does not pose a threat to the viability of elephant species. Only three states prohibit the import and sale of elephant skins: New York, New Jersey and California. Nationally, elephant skin products are easy to find on the Internet. Roje Exotics, which has five dedicated warehouses and several tanneries across the United States, sells African elephant products, including male elephant skin messenger bags for $5,000 and multicolored elephant skin panels for $45. Consumption reflects social values, and consumer preferences vary by culture, class, and gender.