Ivory seizure demonstrates challenge of protecting elephant populations

Authorities in New York have seized $4.5 million (4 million euros) worth of illicit elephant ivory in one of the largest busts in the state's history. This comes as southern African countries want the total ban lifted.

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Law enforcement officials put seized ivory contraband on display with scores of statuettes, a carved column, two pairs of tusks and a chess set carved from the tusks of a dozen slain elephants.

"We are going to dry up... a market that only fuels the slaughter of elephants," New York City's chief prosecutor Cy Vance told reporters Thursday. "It is inexcusable, it is immoral."

New York City is a hub of illegal elephant ivory trade, ahead of California and Hawaii, said Basil Seggos, head of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation which cooperated in the investigation that involved undercover officers posing as buyers at a Manhattan art and antiquities shop.

"This type of behavior will no longer be tolerated," Seggos said.

It is illegal to sell elephant ivory without a special license. But New York's rules were tightened so much in 2014 that they effectively banned ivory sales except under extremely limited circumstances.

The US and China, among the world's biggest ivory consumers, have agreed to enact near-total bans on their domestic markets. A ban on the international ivory trade was enshrined in law under the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) signed in 1989.