Just So? How do we know?
I ask the following question as there are more and more animal parts and animals being cast into pen blanks.
There are now snake skin, alligator jaws, star fish, butterflies, sea horses and I am sure other animals that are being killed just so we can make a pen.
My question for discussion is... Is this right or should we as stewards of the environment boycott these products and the supplies of them?
Emphasis added above
JUST SO we can make a pen? If you KNOW FIRST HAND of anyone doing this, you have a responsibility first to NOT BUY from them. Not dictate to others. Make them aware in intelligent conversation, but accusations made in a blanket fashion, worded to implicate a particular person without proof, is not the way to go. I do hope your intention wasn't along that line, but it reads that way to me.
And now I ask, as others have touched on, how do we KNOW that because it is dead means the ARTIST killed it, or that it WAS killed at all? Did the 3 year old holding the dead frog kill it, or find it already expired? We can all have a guess, but nobody alive but the kid knows this truth.
It would be ridiculously callous business practice, leaving environmental issues aside for just a moment, to source components of your product illegally, or in a way that would severely limit your marketplace. This meaning folks like many of us who care about proper treatment of our cohabitants on this rock, would drop out of their customer pool.. Businesspeople generally don't like to alienate their market. Yes some may do so, but some of the species you list, indicate a singular person, who is widely known to support the environment rather than rape it, as is inferred above in that one blanket statement.
For that matter, what of the wood that was not protected when harvested or purchased, but now is? Now that it's listed, is it irresponsible to try and at least recover your investment?
I have always told my kids, if you have not researched the facts fully, you have no right speaking on the subject as an authority. Qualify the areas you have not verified.
Those who are concerned, as I am, have the responsibility to research and find reputable sources, not move to boycott an entire specialty within our craft. For one, I am entirely confident in my sources and will continue, having no issues of conscience, because I myself have been responsible in verifying the credibility of my sources. We who source our components responsibly should be wearing that as a badge, an additional assurance to our buyers.