Source: National Post

An animal that has been extinct for thousands of years may soon be listed as endangered.

Israel made the proposal at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) at the start of 2019, with more woolly mammoth remains popping up around parts of an ever-warming eastern Russia.

It’s perfectly legal to sell mammoth ivory worth about $500 per pound according to the Wall Street Journal, but it may allow poachers to hunt for fossils of the elephants and work around the law by selling their ivory as mammoth ivory.

“The purpose of this listing proposal is to prevent illegal trade in living elephants by preventing ‘laundering’ or mislabeling of elephant ivory,” read the CITES proposal, that is expected to progress by 2020.

“As far as we are aware, our proposal is the first time that a proposal has been submitted to list an extinct species (as endangered). We are confident that this listing is an important way to prevent extinction of other endangered species.”

The proposal needs the support of two-thirds of the CITES conference, which Switzerland will host in August.

“Somebody was thinking outside the box to try and figure out how to deal with this issue,” says Joseph Bennett, an assistant professor in environmental sciences at Carleton University.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of deliberation and what precedent this sets for other extinct species.”

Russian officials told The Guardian woolly mammoth ivory preserved in Russia’s Yakutia region accounts for about 80 per cent of Russia’s trade in the highly uncontrolled $65 million market.

“It can be difficult to know if its mammoth ivory or elephant ivory,” said Bennet. “This will help border and security agencies clamp down on the illegal trade on elephant ivory.”

The Wall Street Journal reports half a million tons of mammoth tusk may be buried in the area.

Most of the materials are used for jewelry and decorations in China, which banned the ivory trade in 2017. Although ivory prices dropped, lowering demand, it has since grown prompting more hunting.

The Yakutia region of Russia has since proposed laws to regulate the trade of mammoth ivory and tusks, but they are still being developed.