Elephants are among the most interesting and complex animals in the animal kingdom. They play a key role in maintaining the unique ecosystems of the forests and savannahs that they inhabit. They also have complex social relationships and express many of the same emotions that humans do. African elephants are distributed across eastern and southern Africa, with the highest densities occurring in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa. In 1976 the African elephant was first listed in Appendix III of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora, the following year they were moved to Appendix II. Then, in 1978 the African elephant was listed as Threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This act provides conservation of a species and its ecosystem that is endangered or threatened. In 1988 the African Elephant Conservation Act was passed by the U.S. Congress, and in 1989 when the African elephant was finally placed on Appendix I there was an official ban on the international trade in ivory, making it illegal. However, it is heartbreaking to learn that over the past 100 years the African elephant population has decreased by 97%, and it is projected that 50% of the remaining African elephants will be killed within the next decade. This key loss of life is due to the multi-billion dollar business of poaching. Poachers are killing healthy African elephants for their ivory tusks. Ivory is considered a valuable material, and can be used in combs, jewelry, art, piano keys, religious ornaments and simply to represent a symbol of wealth. The sad truth is that as fewer African elephants exist, ivory becomes more rare, and the price and value for this material increases. Currently there is an international ban on the buying and selling of ivory across borders, however certain countries, such as China, allow for the legal selling of ivory. However, hidden beneath China’s legal market for selling ivory there is a modern-day black market. Here there is a secret pipeline where traffickers are able to smuggle poached ivory across multiple borders, eventually reaching China where Chinese buyers are able to mask their poached ivory as legal ivory, selling it in their legal market, feeding into the loop-hole. This further fuels the killing of African elephants for their tusks.