Just thinking...

That the states might have stayed out of it...after all, the Federal government is in charge of imports and interstate commerce, where presumably illegally imported ivory should be controlled. The Feds have the authority and the responsibility, and the states should not have to spend resources doing it for them. That does not mean that states could not call in the Feds whenever they came across something the Feds should handle.

"But"... the charitable organizations were able to raise tons of money because of the uproar they created, and they enjoyed getting their way whenever anything they supported got attention in the media and in the individual states. They paid a lot of people to carry on about saving elephants, but I don't recall that any of them took to the bush to stop poachers.

Larry