African elephants have been slaughtered at alarming (1) over the past decade, large ly because they are the primary source of the world’s ivory. Their population has been dwindled from 1.3 million in 1979 to just 625,000 today, and the rate of killing has been (2) in recent years because many of the older, bigger tusked animals have already been (3) "The poachers now must kill times (4) many elephants to get the same quantity of ivory," explained Curtis Bohlen, senior vice president of the World Wildlife Fund. (5) its record on the environment has been spotty so far, the government last week took the (6) in a major conservation issue by (7) a ban on ivory imports into the US. The move came just four days after a consortium of (8) groups, including the World Wildlife Fund and Wildlife Conservation International, called for that kind of (9) , and it made the US the first nation to (10) imports of both raw and (11) ivory. The ban, says Bohlen, sends a very clear (12) to the ivory poachers that the game is over. In the past African nations have resisted an ivory ban, but (13) they realized that the decimation of the elephant herds poses a (14) threat to their tourist business. Last month Tanzania and several other African countries (15) an amendment to the 102 nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (16) would make the ivory trade illegal worldwide. The amendment is expected to be (17) at an October meeting in Geneva and to go into effect next January. But (18) now and then, conservationists (19) , poachers may go on a rampage, killing elephants (20) , so nations should unilaterally forbid imports right away.

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