Last week, New Jersey Gov. Christie signed a bill putting an end to commercial trade in ivory and rhino horn in his state. Gov. Cuomo is expected to sign a similar bill he negotiated with the state Legislature any day.

World Elephant Day would be an ideal symbolic moment for our state to join the global effort to curtail the illegal slaughter of wildlife.

African elephants, from which most of the world’s ivory comes, are facing their most severe conservation crisis since 1989, when international commercial trade in their coveted tusks was banned.

NOTE: Gov. Cuomo has answered the call from Bennett and thousands of others, signing the bill into law on World Elephant Day

Read the full op-ed by Elizabeth Bennett in the Daily News>>