HOW ARE AFRICAN ELEPHANTS SIMILAR TO MINKE whales? Neither animal is in immediate danger of extinction, but both are protected by international hunting bans because past efforts to exploit the beasts commercially have driven their populations into precipitous decline. Countries that have well- managed elephant herds, including Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana, are eager to sell ivory, just as Norway and Japan want to kill whales. But conservationists are loath to exempt specific nations from the ivory-trade ban for fear that any traffic in tusks will bring a reprise of the rampant cheating that occurred before sales became illegal in 1989.
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