It seems absurd, as well as anachronistic and also economically unprofitable these days, that there is still ivory trafficking in Africa and poachers kill elephants.
Absurd but it is so.
In recent days in Kenya, rangers from the National Wildlife Service (Kws) have discovered ten pachyderms killed on the edge of Meru National Park. Almost all of them had their tusks sawed off. The hunt for traffickers was launched and two suspects were arrested, with three tusks totalling 53 kg of ivory with an estimated value of 70,000 euro. That's what an elephant can be worth, around 35,000 euros.

But the value is not at first sale, it is the estimated commercial value. The two poachers arrested, who according to Kenyan law risk 7 years and upwards, up to life imprisonment (years ago a parliamentary committee had proposed the death penalty for poaching, but that would have been like adding absurdity to absurdity), would have sold the ivory for much less to those who would then ship it to the East at that price.
So the life of an elephant is worth far less.

This in 2023, when it is now 34 years since the ban on international trade in ivory came into force and, above all, there seems to be no other reason to possess it than the aesthetic pleasure of having objects made of the precious material, without, moreover, being able to exhibit them publicly.
In short, it would be more comprehensible to see poachers in action in search of coltan and other 'rare earths' to resell to the technology market (alright, but that is more or less legally already done by the multinationals without the need for smugglers) or, as is really the case, the trafficking of wildlife for the sale of meat on the market.

Two years ago, in an exemplary sentence, two poachers in Voi, Kenya, were each sentenced to sixteen years in prison for being found in possession of 167 Dikdik ready for slaughter. In the town of Embu, on the other hand, police discovered a trade in monkey meat that ended up on 'street food' stalls in the form of kebabs.

It is a gruesome, desperate, but all in all understandable context, unlike those who still risk years in jail by going around killing elephants, because there is still someone in the world who demands ivory.
And this someone, even more than the wretches who throw poisoned darts at the poor animal and then plunder it of its tusks, deserves life imprisonment in a nice, white, shiny ivory prison.