Our biggest find (no, we didn’t buy any) was a $5,000 carved replica Rolex 116518-MDL Men's Watch tusk hidden beneath the display window of an English-speaking gift shop. Beautiful and grim ivory art is the centerpiece issue at this week’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, meeting in Doha, Qatar. The organization will discuss 40-some proposals that help govern the trade of endangered species. Likely, the most controversial of these is from Tanzania and Zambia. They have smaller ears and tails than their brown cousins to prevent heat loss. Their broad front paws (13 inches long and 9inches wide) contain webbing between the toes and act as superefficient paddles, while their shorter hind legs serve as rudders.
Anictitating membrane on their eyes allows them to see replica Rolex 116518-WAL Men's Watch underwater, wherethey hold their breath for two minutes before rising up to surpriseprey. A healthy layer of fat covers most of their body, including theirhead and paws, and may reach five inches thick on their rump. They useall that insulation to keep their body temperatures at 98.6 degrees,or the same temperature as the average human. They can swim for days at a time and maintain an average speed of six miles per hour. The nations want to resume the trade of stock-piled elephant ivory, which CITES put a moratorium on in 1989.
Despite the ban, African elephant numbers have replica Rolex 116518-WDL Men's Watch dropped from roughly 1.3 million in 1980 to less than 500,000 in the wild today. It’s estimated that between eight and 10 percent of Africa’s remaining elephants are poached annually to support demand for ivory in Thailand, Japan, China and yes, the U.S., which was the second largest consumer of carved ivory in 2008. The tusks Zambia and Tanzania want to sell were presumably harvested from elephants that died of natural causes or were killed during control efforts.
