Researchers say they have developed a new way to distinguish between legal mammoth ivory and illegal elephant ivory.
Elephant ivory is often passed off as mammoth ivory when being imported. As the mammoth is extinct, it is legal to trade this form of ivory as opposed to that from elephant tusks, which was banned in 1989. This loophole has contributed to 20,000 elephants being killed each year for their tusks, according to the WWF.
Now, scientists at the University of Hong Kong think they have found a simple method to distinguish between the two types of ivory. Mammoth tusks, which come from the remains of long-dead animals preserved in permafrost, contain different amounts of isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen to their non-extinct elephant counterparts. The team hopes this technique can be used to crack down on the illegal ivory trade.
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