Elephants killed 3 people in Africa last week by elephants. Probably more if some one tallied up the locals, but these were 2 tourists taking their picture and one was hunting elephants.
I am a hunter and a conservationist. But, for the most part I am a meat hunter. I have some small pieces of what I think is elephant ivory in a cue and I am talking small.
My wife was born here in Alaska and I have been here 52 years, so we probably view hunting a bit differently then the average state side city folks.
I have no desire to shoot an elephant for it's tusks. But if I was in Africa and an elephant was terrorizing a village I would pop it in a heart beat if the game warden allowed it.
We have walrus ivory, fossilized mastodon ivory and a couple other keep sakes.
There is so much emotion that comes into play when hunting or killing animals is brought up and often it is not factually based.
Poachers are what is hurting elephant and rhino populations, not legal harvesting under strict quota guidelines. Poachers grab the ivory or rhino horn and run leaving the meat for the buzzards.
Guided hunters harvest a renewable resource and bring hundreds of thousands of dollars into a struggling economy and most of the meat is donated to a needy village.