FWS Ignores Science In Upholding Elephant Ban
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 23, 2014 Washington, D.C. - Safari Club International (SCI) and millions of hunter conservationists worldwide are shocked and disappointed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision to continue the ban on the importation of elephants from Zimbabwe for the rest of 2014. “Like my fellow hunters, I am disappointed in the FWS decision to persist in upholding a ban that has no sound basis in science and undermines conservation,” said SCI President Craig Kauffman. “This administration continues to talk publicly about the benefits of hunting while siding with anti-hunting extremists time after time. SCI’s Washington team will do everything within its power to reverse this misguided and baseless policy.” This decision comes months after SCI, Zimbabwe, and others provided data and detailed responses to questions submitted by the FWS. Both Zimbabwe and SCI provided extensive information supporting Zimbabwe’s adaptive elephant management plan and regulated hunting program. The information demonstrates that Zimbabwe’s management works, U.S. hunters are part of the solution, and the elephant population is not drastically declining as alarmists would have you believe. Removing the U.S. hunter from Africa’s great outdoors will permanently handicap communal wildlife administrators in their fight against poachers and result in significantly less money for conservation and rural development. • Problems with poaching in Zimbabwe will be exacerbated by this ill-advised importation ban. • International hunters are the first line of defense for conservation, management, and anti-poaching throughout Africa. • History has proven that, when wildlife has no value to local residents and businesses, poaching will increase.
The following examples show how hunter-derived revenue is critically important to the rural economy of Zimbabwe: • In Zimbabwe, hunter-derived revenue contributes between 60-90% of the annual budget for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. This funding is critical to on-the-ground anti-poaching efforts. • In many areas, the fees paid by international hunters are immediately reinvested in community projects through a community-based natural resources management program called CAMPFIRE. • An average of 90% of CAMPFIRE revenue annually comes from hunting. Elephant hunting contributes more than 70% of CAMPFIRE’s annual revenue. On average $2 million per year in net income directly benefits local communities, and most of this is derived from the lease of hunting rights to commercial safari operators in 49 CAMPFIRE hunting concessions.
Unfortunately, I am not surprised.
They say the pendulum swings...... I hope it swings so far right in the future that liberals' ears bleed!
Unfortunately Bowfreak speaks volumes about the current state of our country.
Mark
Humankind will always exert its dominion over animals and animals will always be a marketable commodity. The only questions are who benefits and what is in the best interest of the critter.
It only takes a room temperature IQ to understand that so studies are rather futile when they run counter to political whimsy. Government does not want things to work at face value. Government only wants to things to work to its end(s).
people that have little to no issues with hunting will look at elephants and say why and is that really necessary?
Leftists elitists are the smartest people in the world. Just ask them. They don't need any stink-ing studies or science...they know everything there is already. And you can't tell them the sun rises in the east if they think it doesn't. And will refuse to look and see for themselves. Even seen they will say it proves nothing.....
Voting matters. I've seen plenty of "bowhuntes" and other sportsmen voting themselves out. These people want you and your individual independent self sufficient lifestyle gone.
Some just don't get it, don't think it's happening... but it is, chip by chunk they are knocking it down.
If it makes you feel any worse, some of our super-conservative politicians in Kansas are also ignoring scientific facts presented by our own state's biologists, too.
Bake's Link
Pretty good link to a discussion that includes some press releases and other links. Worth a check.
I don't have much, but Conservation Force is apparently taking a pretty active role in trying to provide info to the USFWS. I printed out their donation form
Bake
"Feds to ‘Re-evaluate’ Elephant Policy After Mid-Term Elections
Elephant Head On
DALLAS (July 24, 2014) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it will wait until after mid-term elections to “re-evaluate” a controversial new policy on elephant hunting. But conservation groups including Dallas Safari Club (DSC) worry that political gamesmanship in America is already compromising sustainable elephant management in Africa.
Yesterday, the agency promised a December review of a suddenly announced ban on importing elephants lawfully hunted in Zimbabwe (and Tanzania) in 2014.
Since the April announcement, DSC has criticized the ban as a politically motivated stunt that would only hinder wildlife conservation and rural communities in Africa. Seeking a reversal, DSC and its partners began providing data and info to help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fully understand the situation on the ground in the affected countries.
But the agency on July 23 confirmed the ban and, in the next-to-last paragraph, the suspicious timeline for revisiting it – adding to concerns that politics are trumping science, according to DSC Executive Director Ben Carter.
“Basically, this agency is taking a timeout from science-based conservation policy,” he said.
“All signs point to politics, because science, facts, on-the-ground expertise and even common sense aren’t moving the needle with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” said Carter. “By effectually banning lawful hunters, this administration is de-funding a system proven to protect elephants where they are threatened, and manage elephants where they are overpopulated.”
He added, “This agency has offered nothing to replace the lost revenue, knowledge or leadership that hunters provided for elephant conservation in Zimbabwe and Tanzania. It has opened a gate for poachers because now there is less stewardship of a valuable resource.”
Carter said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also ignored the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council, a federally recognized advisory body of respected conservation organizations such as Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Wildlife Management Institute and other groups, universities and agencies. The council had identified flawed processes, logic and data used to formulate the ban."
This article pretty well sums things up:
Politics trumps science!!! It's all about politics.
This reminds me of how politicians trump our military efforts - What would have happened if the U.S. would have followed thru with Patton's recommendation of taking Russia at the end of WWII? I truly believe we would be living in an entirely different world than we do today.
In the end, we much blame ourselves for allowing the people we elected to make laws and decisions contrary to the best interests of the people who elected them.
