Wildlife – Animal Law Coalition

Why is it so hard for President Trump to flatly forbid trophy hunting imports?

BY
DELCIANNA WINDERS
(First printed in the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Friday, March 9, 2018, 12:16 PM)

It’s been three years since the world erupted in outrage when Cecil the lion was selfishly and ineptly hunted down by Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer. The callous killing of Cecil threw a harsh spotlight on the slaughtering of animals for their body parts — “trophies” — so they can be stuffed and hung up on walls in macabre tableaux mounted by insecure men. (Yes, it’s almost exclusively men who participate in this so-called sport.) It’s time for our government to stop being complicit in this indefensible horror.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that the import of body parts of African elephants shot for sport could be allowed on a case-by-case basis. This news came only a few months after the President spoke out against the practice and put the decision on hold. Back in November, President Trump tweeted, “Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal.”

He was right then and if he meant it, he needs to direct his agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), to do its job and protect wildlife, not trophy hunters.

Importing elephant “trophies” is currently illegal unless a government agency allows an exception to the law that is supposed to protect endangered species, and there is no legitimate basis for allowing the body parts of imperiled animals to be imported into our country.

New reports detail Cecil’s last hours. According to the forthcoming book “Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil & the Future of Africa’s Iconic Cats,” By biologist Andrew Loveridge, after deliberately luring him outside the confines of a national park in order to skirt regulations, Palmer shot Cecil with his first steel arrow but missed his vital organs and major arteries. The majestic lion suffered for 10 to 12 excruciatingly painful hours before finally being “dispatched” with a second arrow from a compound bow.

Public condemnation of trophy hunting remains strong. It’s a cowardly pastime that is all about the perverse need to nab and slaughter the biggest and the “best.” It’s about gleefully posing for twisted selfies with lifeless bodies. It’s about bragging rights, as if blasting a complacent animal with high-powered weaponry were some sort of achievement.

We must ask ourselves, what is the psychology of someone who spends tens of thousands of dollars to travel to another country just to kill? When their motive is the thrill of the kill and they have a complete disregard for another’s life and take perverted pleasure in displaying heads of animals minding their own business, this indicates to the rest of us a very deeply disturbed psyche.

Trying to spin these kills as “conservation” is absurd. The animals are supposed to be protected by international treaty and the federal Endangered Species Act. Killing them or importing their body parts is strictly prohibited. There is one exception — when doing so would help “enhance the propagation or survival of the affected species.”

As the Supreme Court recognized, this exception is meant to apply under “extremely narrow circumstances.” And yet, through an outrageous pay-to-play policy, the FWS has let the exception become the rule.

Pressured by groups like Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association, the FWS now issues dozens of permits every year authorizing trophy imports. Instead of limiting permits to those cases that truly help species, as the law requires, the agency hands them out like candy to just about anyone claiming to make a donation toward conservation.

Never mind that the donations are nothing but collateral to the cruel hunting, are often paltry, and go to countries where there is no assurance that they will actually be used for conservation. Never mind that FWS often doesn’t even follow up to make sure that the promised donations are even made, let alone that they end up where they were supposed to. Never mind that killing elephants or lions — members of complex social groups — directly undermines conservation while also destroying families.

As ethicist Marc Bekoff says, “It’s time to put away the guns . . . and figure out how to live in peaceful coexistence with the fascinating animals with whom we’re supposed to share our most magnificent planet.”

The FWS would do well to take that message to heart, charged as it is by Congress with protecting these animals.

Winders is the PETA Foundation’s vice president and deputy general counsel for captive animal law enforcement and a visiting scholar at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

Trump to Allow Import of Elephant and Lion Trophies

The Trump Administration has quietly authorized the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to issue permits for imports of trophies taken from elephants. This after Trump called the practice of hunting elephants for their trophies a “horror show”. President Barack Obama’s administration had banned import of trophies taken from elephants Zimbabwe and Zambia in particular. The new FWS Memo effectively withdraws the Obama era ban.

African elephants are designated under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. §1531, et seq. (ESA). An “enhance[ment]” finding is necessary under ESA to allow any hunting of a designated species. This is a finding that hunting a designated species will “enhance the propagation or survival of the affected species” or is for scientific purposes consistent with the conservation purpose of the ESA”. 16 U.S.C. §§1538(a), 1539(a)(1)(A). The new memo effectively withdraws the Obama era findings that hunting African elephants in the wild will not enhance their survival. FWS will now issue permits on an undefined “case-by-case” basis to hunters and others who want to import parts or trophies from elephants hunted down in the wild.

That is not all….The Trump Administration has also lifted the ban on importing hunted lions. Effective January 22, 2016 FWS under President Obama reacted to the dramatic decline of lions in the wild by designating two subspecies under ESA. The new rules effectively protected all remaining lions from trophy hunting. In its new memo FWS has withdrawn all previous findings that hunting lions does not “enhance” their survival in the wild. Permits to import lion trophies are now available from FWS.

Trump Plans for Offshore Drilling a “Grave Danger” to Wildlife

The Trump Administration plans to expand offshore oil and gas drilling over the next five years from 2019-2024 to include areas off the Atlantic, Pacific and Alaska coasts as well as in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic. The proposed oil and gas development will cover more than 98% of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Only the State of Florida has been granted an exemption for its coastal waters.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has warned such an expansion of oil and gas development in U.S. coastal waters presents a “grave danger” to marine animals such as whales and sea turtles. The North Atlantic right whale pictured here is an endangered species; there are only 500 of these whales left. They will suffer significant “stress caused by this expansion of oil and gas activity” that may push them to extinction.

Polar bears, narwhals, and walruses are some of the animals already endangered by warming temperatures and overfishing of their prey. Increased oil and gas development will mean further degradation of their habitat including their prey. It is not just the threat of a large oil spill. These animals face loss of habitat and injury from smaller oil and gas leaks that can occur simply from drilling or pipelines. Their habitat is also threatened by increased traffic of tankers and equipment and the use of seismic air gun blasts used to explore for oil and gas. These animals are not likely to survive with increased oil and gas development in the Arctic.

North Atlantic Cod and corals are other examples of animals whose habitat will be further degraded by increased oil and gas development. All of the oceans’ animal life is threatened.

Go here to send a letter to Interior Secretary Zinke to let him know you oppose the expansion of offshore drilling that threatens America’s marine wildlife.

Trump Administration Targets Alaska Wildlife

Last year on April 3, 2017 President Trump signed into law House Joint Resolution 69, H.J. Res. 69, that repealed 2016 Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) regulations making generally illegal some of the most egregious hunting practices on 76.8 million acres of land on Alaska National Wildlife Refuges. Except in cases of federally qualified subsistence users, the regulations prohibited:

a. Taking black or brown bear cubs or sows with cubs (exception allowed for resident hunters under customary and traditional use activities at a den site October 15-April 30 in specific game management units in accordance with State law);
b. Taking brown bears by luring them with bait for a point blank kill;
c. Taking of bears using cruel leghold or other traps or snares;
d. Taking wolves and coyotes during the denning season (May 1-August 9);
e. Taking bears from an aircraft or on the same day as air travel has occurred. (A similar regulation already applied to wolves or wolverines.)

In repealing the regulations by federal statute, the Congress and Trump Administration made it impossible for FWS to re-issue the regulations under a later administration. Instead, it will take another federal statute to make these activities illegal on Alaska National Refuges to the extent they are not prohibited by state law.