09-04-15
Dear Owner of Friends Lapidary and
Jewelry,
You seem like such a nice man. In fact
I'm sure you are a nice man. You are helpful and knowledgeable
and kind when I'm in your store.
However there's one thing that really
bothers me about Friends, one thing and one thing only.
Your store sells ivory beads.
Please stop, I beg of you to please
stop.
Perhaps you're not aware an elephant
is poached every 15 minutes in Africa, that's an average of 96
elephants being killed daily for ivory.
Perhaps you don't know poachers shoot
elephants with poisoned darts to avoid making noise with guns at
times. This poison debilitates the animal but doesn't instantly kill
it; elephants have the front half of their faces cut off while
they're still alive.
Perhaps you don't know that poachers
wait in hiding for the family members and friends of the elephants to
return to the 'scene of the crime' to mourn their beloved... only to
massacre the makeshift 'elephant funeral.'
Perhaps you don't know that baby
elephants are being left motherless every day and die a slow death of
hunger and heartache.
Perhaps you don't know that poached
ivory funds extremist and terrorist groups in Africa and throughout
the Middle East... this is extremely dirty money.
Perhaps you don't know that elephants
are pregnant for nearly 2 years at a time so the reproduction cycle
is very slow.
Perhaps you don't know that elephants
with large tusks (referred to as the 'Tuskers' instinctively hide
their tusks in bushes or behind trees when a helicopter flies over
their heads)- they know they're targeted and killed for their tusks
and, yes, poachers track elephants and rhino by helicopter- these are
organized terrorist-funded-groups.
I could go on but I won't. It's not
good for my blood pressure.
Sources: African Wildlife Foundation,
The Tsavo Trust, International Anti-Poaching-Foundation,
96elephants.org, WWF (Traffic in particular), NRDC... I'm a member of
all of these groups even though my meager earnings allow me to donate
a very minimal amount annually.
I know your ivory sir is 'from the
vault' but that doesn't matter. You carrying it still in some small
way 'creates a demand,' and implicates that you're O.K. with the
violent slaughter of a majestic, intelligent, sentient creature. And
you seem like such a nice man, I just can't imagine that to be the
case.
Thank You For Hearing My Concerns,
Truly,
One of Your Customers
