Ivory Poachers

Your front page of July l9 displayed a full-color photo of this decade’s supreme act of idiocy in the name of conservation--the government of Kenya burning some 12 tons of contraband elephant tusks seized from poachers.

If I was a poacher, I would like nothing better, aside from the profits on those tusks, than to see them destroyed. If the tusks had been dumped on the ivory market, it would have at least temporarily depressed the price of ivory, reducing the incentive for some poachers to kill elephants.

And with the $3 million that went up in smoke, the Kenyan government could have hired and equipped a force of game wardens far better than the motley crew it now has.

Selling the tusks to places where the ivory trade is legal could have meant that several hundred less elephants would be killed to supply the demand for ivory. The simple and obvious fact is that the tusk burning publicity stunt will insure the slaughter of more elephants.

D. RICHARD BAER

Los Angeles