COMMERCE CITY, Colo.: Highlighting a pledge to crack down on the multibillion-dollar illicit global trade in wildlife, U.S. authorities on Thursday pulverized 6 tons of seized ivory from thousands of elephants slaughtered by poachers for their prized tusks.
Joined by representatives of several federal agencies and conservation groups, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dan Ashe, presided over the mechanized ivory crushing at a special storehouse in Colorado in the first event of its kind in the United States.