Expert Voices

Saving Elephants: Ivory Crush in Central Park (Photos)

Tiny yet expensive

Ivory Crush Central Park

(Image credit: Julie Larsen Maher/Copyright WCS)

Even small ivory trinkets have huge price tags like this one for $9,500.

Beauty and destruction

Ivory Crush Central Park

(Image credit: Eric Januszkiewicz/Copyright WCS)

A large ivory carving teeters on the conveyor belt as it makes it way to the crusher.

Speaking for the animals

Ivory Crush Central Park

(Image credit: Eric Januszkiewicz/Copyright WCS)

A New York State Department of Environmental Conservation officer watches as an elaborate ivory piece moves along the conveyor belt of the crusher.

To be crushed

Ivory Crush Central Park

(Image credit: Megan Maher/Copyright WCS)

Ivory carvings made from many different elephant tusks await the crusher to send a message to wildlife traffickers.

A sign to the poachers

Ivory Crush Central Park

(Image credit: Megan Maher/Copyright WCS)

Lieutenant Jesse Paluch, Environmental Conservation Investigator for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and Major Scott Florence of NY DEC place an elaborate carving on the crusher, part of a recent confiscation of nearly two tons of ivory.

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