eBay took an important step toward contributing to the effort of animal welfare organizations of saving the elephants, by announcing a ban on the sale of ivory products, which will be fully implemented by January 2009.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) applauded eBay’s for its decision to protect the elephants, and called for other Internet dealers to adopt the same measure, and take responsibility for the impact their business has on endangered species.

“eBay has set the standard for protecting elephants, now governments and other online dealers need to follow their example ,” Barbara Cartwright, IFAW Campaigns Manager, said in a statement following the announcement.

According to an IFAW report, which will be made public on Tuesday, over 70 percent of endangered species products are listed for sale in the United States, accounting for 10 times the number of products tracked in the next two countries on the list, the United Kingdom and China.

A month-and-a-half-long investigation revealed over 7,000 endangered wildlife products on 183 Web sites in 11 countries. The importance of eBay’s gesture is impressive, considering that eBay was also found to be the largest distributor of such objects.

The investigation found over 4,000 elephant ivory listings, most of them on eBay. “Internet dealers profit off of every piece of elephant ivory sold on their Web sites,” IFAW Washington’s Director Jeff Flocken explained, “and every piece of that ivory came from a dead elephant.”

The Animal Welfare Organization revealed that a pair of elephant tusks has been purchased for over $21,000 from eBay. The situation is getting worse, and ivory transactions are still current, despite the fact that they have been illegal for almost two decades now, with very few exceptions.