The illegal ivory trade continues to drive elephant poaching, with every ivory purchase linked directly to the suffering and death of individual elephants.
Ivory poaching causes some of the most acute suffering documented in wildlife. Elephants killed in poaching attacks die violently, often over prolonged periods if initial shots are not lethal. Surviving calves witness the deaths of their family members — animals who protect calves during attacks. These calves, if rescued, show trauma responses including nightmares, hypervigilance, and social dysfunction for months or years. The welfare case for ivory trade abolition is absolute: there is no welfare-neutral way to extract ivory from a living elephant. Demand reduction campaigns in China, which reversed the trajectory of poaching rates after China closed its ivory market in 2018, demonstrate that consumer behaviour change translates directly into fewer elephant deaths.