Her group began a letter-writing campaign to eBay in European countries asking the Internet auction sites to reject sales of animals taken in the wild or any of their parts, whether made into footstools, chess sets, pens or other ornaments, especially rhinoceros horns and ivory.

"A huge portion of the illegal items traded over the Internet is ivory products," Michael Wamithi, a Kenyan elephant program manager.

"The impact of Internet sales is most definitely felt on the ground in elephant country," he testified before the US Congress.

Wamithi came from Nairobi to lobby Washington in favor of stanching Internet trade in ivory and all illegal takings, which gets an international hearing next month.

The Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is an international treaty of 171 countries that will meet in June.

Then, Germany, representing the European Union, will promote the idea policing the Internet, where the remains of endangered species, such as tigers and sharks are sold as poultices of no medical value.

Twenty-six tonnes of ivory was seized around the world in the past 18 months, Levine said. "We believe that is 10 percent of trade."

Some of it winds up on the US eBay auction site, which as Levine spoke showed 385 items made of ivory, from trinkets to a "Magnificent 5-foot long elephant ivory party boat!" with a starting bid of 30,000 dollars. The seller's New York address was listed.

Few items on the US eBay professed to be "pre-ban ivory," but such claims mean little, said Levine, who compares the ivory trade to the sale of diamonds, but without a Kimberly process to certify it.

Even a certificate of authenticity prior to the 1947 international ban does not raise the value of the piece, because enforcement is so lax, she said.

"People are selling stuff because they think they can get away with it, and so far they have," Levine said.

In the countries where activists have approached eBay and other auction sites, "The ivory offerings have been reduced by 98 percent," she said.

Not surprisingly, wildlife defenders had good results with eBay in Germany, which will spearhead Internet enforcement proposals at the 14th CITES meeting of all member nations in The Hague, June 3-15.

US offices of eBay did not return repeated telephone calls from AFP.

While the member nations are required to conform to CITES rules, Levine said, enforcement will be more difficult than putting the right rules in place.

"France has some of the most excellent policies of all of the international eBays but they have a problem enforcing," she said.

Not a problem for Craig's List, a San Francisco-based, community bulletin board in hundreds of cities allowing classified advertisements, jobs, second-hand items, even "erotic services", that anyone may post -- or police.

With a staff of 23 supervising five billion pages a month, founder Craig Newmark told AFP he will let the consumer beware.

"I encourage anyone who sees anything like that to flag it and let us know if there is a problem so we can see if there's a problem," he said.

Levine would be happy if a "landing page" popped up on a website anytime a person tried to post an illegal item, warning them of the legal and moral ramifications of selling wildlife.

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Related Links
International Fund for Animal Welfare
Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species
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