A new report questions the claim that trophy hunting in Africa benefits wildlife conservation.
It’s been almost a year since Cecil, the world’s most famous Lion, was killed in Zimbabwe by trophy hunter Walter Palmer, an American dentist.
Cecil was illegally lured out of the sanctity of Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He suffered for 40 hours before he finally died. But this is just one example of e suffering that many animals, including threatened species, have to endure at the hands of trophy hunters.
Sadly, however, trophy hunting still remains legal in many countries!
In a new report called Missing the Mark, the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Natural Resources charges that Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Namibia, and South Africa are providing U.S. officials with little evidence that taxes and fees raised from trophy hunts targeting Lions, Leopards, Elephants, and Rhinoceroses provide conservation benefits and have an overall net-positive impact on imperiled species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has the authority to grant a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to American trophy hunters wishing to bring animal trophies into the country, has too often supported nations’ claims that the hunts enhance the survival of the species, the report charged.
“You can’t make the assumption that these countries are using the funds for conservation. You have to have the proof,” said Matt Strickland, a member of the committee’s Democratic staff. “U.S. hunters are responsible for taking a lot of animal trophies from Africa, and we want to make sure the Fish and Wildlife Service is doing its job in permitting trophy imports, and Americans aren’t contributing to the decline of certain species.”
American hunters wishing to import the heads, horns, pelts, or any other parts of animals they have killed overseas must request a permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service.
If the animal has threatened or endangered species protections under the Endangered Species Act, the agency requires that the hunt enhance the survival of the species. The agency is responsible as well for managing U.S. compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which also regulates and permits the hunting of endangered species.
“On paper, all four countries examined have equally strong frameworks for ensuring that trophy hunts benefit species conservation,” the authors wrote. “Unfortunately, the implementation of these frameworks has in many cases been marred by corruption and has not produced the advertised and desired results.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service has sometimes turned a blind eye to these shortfalls and granted import permits for animals killed in these countries, said Strickland. “They accepted at face value that trophy hunting benefits wildlife conservation without drilling down and actually checking on individual cases,” he said.
An agency spokesperson stated in an email that the agency is reviewing the report, adding, “By law, we cannot and will not allow trophies of certain protected species into the United States that were hunted in any nation whose conservation program fails to meet high standards for transparency, scientific management and effectiveness. If we have concerns about a country’s management program or a species’ population status, we will not issue permits.”
One such case occurred in 2014, when the agency shut down imports of Elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania because of the species’ marked population decline. “They also weren’t providing any evidence that the hunts were benefiting conservation, so Fish and Wildlife stopped allowing it,” Strickland said. “We’d like to see more of that type of decision making regularly.”
That’s the exception, not the norm, according to the report, which noted thousands of cases in which the Fish and Wildlife Service used special rules and loopholes to exempt hunters from permitting requirements for many species listed as endangered. The report authors found that between 2010 and 2014, the agency could have required permits for more than 2,700 hunting trophies imported to the county yet only required one, for a critically endangered black Rhinoceros. Of 1,469 Leopard trophies that could have mandated an import permit, the agency required none.
In other instances, such as the controversial baiting tactics that lured Cecil out of a protected area and led to his death at the hands of Walter Palmer, the trophy hunting industry isn’t “playing by the rules,” the report stated, and “needs to be regulated and held accountable for there to be any hope of a consistent conservation benefit.”
To help rein in the negative impacts of trophy hunting on wildlife, the report recommends that the Fish and Wildlife Service deny import requests from hunters convicted of wildlife violations, close loopholes that allow some trophies to be imported without a permit, collect more data on trophy hunting through the permitting process, and increase permit fees to fund science and conservation.
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PROTECT ALL WILDLIFE 
What a bunch of assholes!!! The picture of the Texas oil man with all his kill stuffed and in the room with him…that is a grave yard not a room!! And the picture of the elephant … that asshole killed a herd family member, that is highly intelligent with emotions and families not unlike our own, and paying over 350k to murder an endangered black rhino??? So these kills are for what reason….a trophy? What the hell kind of trophy does this represent? That you can murder a defenseless animal that is just living it’s life? Where is the “sport” in this? How can an animal protect itself from a bullet and a calculated murder…all you have to do if find and shoot!!! There should be a global ban and these humans that murder animals for any reason whether trophy or just abuse need to be prosecuted and imprisoned. It is a pity we can’t have a sport of killing the trophy hunters!!!
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Killing animals is deplorable.
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So sad that the only way this overindulged people can feel good about themselves is by taking a life of defenseless unknowing animal. I can only hope at judgement day they get what’s coming to them.
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