Ivory and pianos were once so inseparable that pianists were said to be "tickling the ivories." Yet when the world renowned piano maker Steinway stopped capping its keys with ivory in 1956, the classical music field did not come crashing to a halt.

Indeed, the high-quality plastics that replaced the material from tusks of slaughtered elephants were superior in many ways. They did not yellow, curl or crack. Today they are found on the pianos of our most famous classical pianists.

While Steinway, Baldwin and other piano manufacturers abandoned ivory six decades ago (mainly for economic reasons), the mass killing of elephants for their tusks sadly continues today across Africa.

As a wave of poaching by organized criminal syndicates has pushed the number of elephants killed in Africa today to a rate of some 35,000 per year, or 96 each day, many in New York and across the United States have been coming to the conclusion that something needs to be done.

Read the full blog on the Huffington Post >>