An elephantine moan

Breakfast entertainment was provided today by a page heading piece in the Guardian about how awful the elephant situation was.

It seems that while there might be half a million of the beasts wandering around east Africa, smashing down farms, crops and trees both left and right, an unsustainable number are being taken out for their ivory, in gross contravention of some international convention regulating elephantine affairs. It seems also that the Mr. Bigs in this sorry affair are mostly to be found in Thailand or China. And, furthermore, Thailand is sufficiently backward to have legalised the ivory trade. I expect I will be reading next that one is still allowed to smoke in their girlie bars, with the girlies contracting goodness knows what occupational diseases in consequence.

First, this is yet another case of the developed world, having slaughtered all their large wild animals and felled all their forests, telling the undeveloped world what it ought to be doing with all their large wild animals and and all their forests. All a bit of a cheek really.

Second, why do we fuss so much about the fate of a few elephants when we slaughter untold numbers of cows, pigs, goats and sheep, not to mention a few horses, in the name of The Lord Pie. Why don't we erect yet another monument in Park Lane to all those sacrificed on his altar, rather than fussing about somebody else's animals in somebody else's part of the world?

Third, why do we fuss about the existential threat to the whole race of elephants, when millions and millions of other species have hit the buffers since they first escaped from Noah's Ark? Hitting the buffers is entirely natural, not to say organic, part of life on earth. Particularly for large animals, the average size of which has declined steadily since that first escape. How many brontosaurii do you see in Hyde Park?

Fourth, why don't we deal with the whole problem by legalisation, much the same arguments applying as in the case of recreational drugs? We could encourage the unemployed of east Africa to set up elephant farms for the production of ivory for the thriving markets in the far East. We could contribute by sharing our considerable quangertise, by advising on the setting up an OffQual(Ivory) to supervise the farms, keeping a beady eye both on the treatment of the elephants and the quality of the ivory. Perhaps the post of chairman or women of this office could be a modern version of the Chiltern Hundreds, a sinecure for politicians leaving our political scene. More seriously, perhaps the office could actually run the market in ivory, a sort of miniature version of the market in Chicago (http://www.cmegroup.com/) which worries about things like hogs and cows. No need to let the mid westerns get all the action.

In this way we would be safeguarding the future of the elephants, we would be creating much needed jobs in east Africa and we would be promoting a valuble export trade, both a source of foreign currency and a useful diversification. A useful by-product would be the large amount of first class protein available for conversion into east African pies.

PS: the only puzzle was why on the day that the Guardian should choose to highlight the scandalous state of the elephant, the main picture - a two page spread - should be of an elephant seal. Seals are not elephants however misleading the name might be.