Elephant tusks for sale – a hard white material from elephant tusks that often kill elephants – are illegal. But ivory collected from the remains of extinct mammoths was sold, but some cases were not. Because the two are difficult to distinguish, illegal traders mix elephant tusks with legally traded mammoth tusks and slide down under the radar. But a new forensic tool may soon end this evil trick.
Chinese wildlife forensic scientists believe that authorities can distinguish elephant tusks from mammoth tusks by analyzing stable isotopes (forms of elements that will not decompose over time). If this approach is widely adopted, it can be screened as a fast sample before applying a more expensive and time-consuming approach.
“The price of mammoth tusks accounts for only a small part of the price of elephant tusks, but the two are seen by engravers and experts as completely different materials because mammoth tusks often lack the deep layer of elephant tusks, creamy white,” Pavel Toropov, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong and co-author of researchers, published a researcher today on the front desk of Diary, whose collaborators published in their remarks before the diary. “One trader compared them to Lamborghini and Ford. Mammoth ivory cannot really replace elephant ivory, but its value may be in providing legal cover for elephant ivory.”
Currently, the most accurate way to separate the two ivory is through molecular analysis (studying molecules) or radiocarbon age (technology for organic materials to date), both of which are expensive and time-consuming.
Isotope ratios vary by environment and other factors. Since the Ice Age Mammoth was preserved in Siberia’s high-latitude long-term permafrost, which is completely different from today’s tropical elephants, the isotope ratio in its ivory should be different. In this case, Toropov and his team decided to investigate whether analyzing these differences could provide a better way to differentiate between two types of ivory.
The team conducted stable isotope analysis of 44 elephant tusks and 35 mammoth tusks, specializing in the stable isotope ratios of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur. Although this approach reveals a significant overlap in the carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotope ratios between the two ivory, the researchers recorded that the mammoth isotope ratios of elephants and oxygen rarely overlap, without hydrogen.
First author Maria Santos explains: “This is because the water elements of mammoths in high-living areas like Siberia have different isotope characteristics compared to elements of water ingested by elephants in tropical latitudes.” In short, is an effective way to analyze the stable isotope ratio of oxygen and hydrogen in a suspected ivory object?
While using this approach in court cases requires more research, “We hope that the protocol described in our study will be applied to screening large numbers of allegedly mammoth ivory objects,” Santos added. “Samples with isotope characteristics of isotope ivory can then be tested using more expensive and time-consuming methods such as radiocarbon dating. This can help fight the illegal ivory trade more effectively and close potential wash loopholes.”
The way I see is a simpler solution: make all ivory illegal.
