2011. The true figure may even be double that. Meanwhile, last year saw an estimated 34.7 tons of illegal ivory seized globally. It is hard to tell whether making the sale of ivory legal actually helped. Many governments did not report their seizures, so when it was time to judge the Japan experiment the information was off. The cases from the U. S. and Europe made up most of the count but where it matters most in Asia, less than 10 percent of the seizures were reported. China is the biggest ivory smuggler in the world. There are lots of signs that ivory is actually becoming more popular in China. They have more stores that sell it as well as more places that train people to carve ivory, including universities like the Beijing University of Technology. There is a lot of corruption in governments and officials sometimes take bribes to ' look the other way '. If guards do decide to confront the poachers, their lives are in danger. Poachers don’ t mind murdering people, just like they do the defenseless animals. Governments that were against to the ivory trade ban in the first place do not put much effort into stopping elephant poaching in their countries. Conclusion
Interpol uses a formula to estimate how many elephants are actually smuggled. They assume that they only collect ten percent of the illegal ivory. Each