Oxford Dictionary definition: brutal; unfeeling; barbarous (Synonyms: animal, barbaric, barbarous, bestial, bloodthirsty, brutal, brutish, diabolical, fiendish, inhumane, merciless, pitiless, ruthless, savage, unfeeling, unnatural, vicious.)
Our definition: To describe the word inhuman as brutal, unfeeling and barbarous implies that to be human is not to be those things. But since billions of animals who have been cruelly, brutally and needlessly savaged and murdered by humans would, if they could, testify that fiendish, merciless and diabolical are words that describe human, not inhuman, behaviour, we believe that the Oxford Dictionary’s definition is wrong. Also the word animal is incorrectly lumped in with these words. It is true that carnivorous animals do hunt and kill their prey, but they do it for survival and without malice. They kill because they have to and no more than they have to; they do not enslave and torture; they do not imprison and breed their prey; they do not take more than they need. For this reason the word ‘animal’ is the only correct synonym for inhuman: animals are inhuman because they are not like humans, they are better than humans.
Oxford Dictionary definition: 1. White substance of tusks of elephant etc. 3. (in plural) slang things made of or resembling ivory, esp. dice, piano keys, or teeth.
Our definition: The term ivory is used to describe any mammalian tooth or tusk of commercial interest that is large enough for being carved or scrimshawed (engraved or carved). Both teeth and tusks consist of dentine, pulp cavity, cementum and enamel. Elephant ivory is the most important source, but ivory from mammoth, walrus, hippopotamus, sperm whale, killer whale, narwhal and wart hog are used as well.
Every year, tens of thousands of elephants are brutally killed for their ivory. Between 2008 and 2013, the estimated death toll ranged between 30,000 and 50,000 elephants per year. The slaughter is horrifying; ivory dealers employ and arm poachers, who in turn target entire herds of elephants, shooting them with automatic weapons and hacking off their tusks with axes and chainsaws.
These tusks are fed into the illegal international ivory trade which is controlled by highly organised criminal syndicates. This trade feeds demand for ivory products in Asia, Europe, USA and elsewhere, which continues to bankroll elephants’ destruction. Legal international sales of ivory in 1999 and 2008 added to the demand but also caused confusion among consumers (‘is ivory legal or not?’) and provided an avenue for criminals to launder illegal ivory into the black-market.
The authorities seem unable to stop it and yet ordinary consumers could. Like most animal cruelty, it continues because there is a demand for it; it continues because people will pay for it. To make it stop, all people have to do is stop buying it.