Officers from the California department of fish and game have recently begun to enforce a law stating that it is illegal to sell, or to posses with the intent to sell, ivory regardless of age anywhere in the state of California.
 
Raids have taken place across the state at fairs, markets and auctions houses. A couple with a small stall at an outdoor flea market approached journalists after they were charged with misdemeanour for selling six old items of ivory.
 
A big auction house in Scots Valley called Slawinski Auction Co was raided by armed police on 18th February. $150,000 worth of lots containing ivory were confiscated. The auction house owner claimed he had tried to phone the dept of fish and game before the sale and was incensed that armed police had barged onto their site, terrifying young staff working that night. He said "We have always worked with the idea that ivory has to be genuinely antique in order to sell it; I mean older than one hundred years. I've been very careful about that. We even refused a couple of pieces for that sale because we couldn't prove they were that old."
 
A Bonhams sale in San Francisco of Asian decorative arts on 13th March had 125 lots withdrawn that included ivory.
 
The California Penal Code Section 653o states:
 
(a) It is unlawful to import into this state for commercial purposes, to possess with intent to sell, or to sell within the state, the dead body, or any part or product thereof, of any polar bear, leopard, ocelot, tiger, cheetah, jaguar, sable antelope, wolf (Canis lupus), zebra, whale, cobra, python, sea turtle, colobus monkey, kangaroo, vicuna, sea otter, free-roaming feral horse, dolphin or porpoise (Delphinidae), Spanish lynx, or elephant.
 
eBay, based in California, has already placed a global ban on the sale of all types of ivory, stating. 'This global ban will be effective January 1, 2009.'