Did You Know That The WWF Endorses The Killing Of Wild Animals

In 2009, WWF sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in support of limited, managed hunting of black Rhinos in Namibia.

“WWF believes that sport hunting of Namibia’s black Rhino population will strongly contribute to the enhancement of the survival of the species,” the group wrote, citing the generation of income for conservation and the removal of post-breeding males.

Read more: Rhino Hunt Permit Auction Sets Off Conservation Debate:

Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, sparked widespread criticism for going on a elephant hunting trip in Botswana. The king is the honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). When asked should the honorary president of the conservation group WWF be allowed to hunt elephants the press spokesman of WWF Germany said No but insisted that a regulated and controlled hunt can help to protect nature.

Read more: Poaching Is The Elephant’s Worst Enemy

The WWF Endorses The Killing Of Wild Animals

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) gives special meaning to the word “conservation.” The organization, founded in 1961 by a group of wealthy trophy hunters, including HRH Prince Philip,

apparently believes that conserving animals means keeping them around long enough for well-heeled “sportsmen” to blast them out of the woods, oceans, skies, plains of Africa, and jungles of Asia. Past WWF chapter presidents include C.R. “Pink” Gutermuth, who also served as president of the National Rifle Association, and trophy hunter Francis L. Kellogg, who is legendary for his massive kills. In its early days, the WWF even used fur auctions to raise funds. Since then, the WWF has learned that most people are appalled by hunting and trapping, so today, the organization veils its true stance under phrases like “sustainable development,” arguing that killing is acceptable under some circumstances. When answering difficult questions about its policy on hunting, trapping, and whaling, the WWF is careful never to state outright that it approves of all these activities. But don’t be fooled, the WWF’s intentions are all too clear and deadly.

Sealing: According to the Web site of the WWF’s Canadian office, “WWF is not an animal welfare organization. We support the hunting and consumption of wild animals provided the harvesting does not

threaten the long-term survival of wildlife populations. WWF has never opposed a sustainable seal hunt in northern or eastern Canada.” However, despite the WWF’s portrayal of the situation, the Canadian seal hunt is anything but a “subsistence” hunt––it is the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world. Quotas established by the Canadian government have soared to an all-time high: 350,000 seals per year for the next three years. Not since the mid-1800s, when unrestricted slaughter saw a million seals per year killed, has so much blood been shed on the ice off Canada’s East Coast. Worse is that the Canadian government has stated in internal documents that having the WWF’s support for any raise in seal quotas is important, and the WWF’s position statement suggests that it had been working with the Canadian government before the quota was announced. In other words, the WWF had the power to help avert the largest quota of harp seal pups in history but chose, instead, to let it happen without so much as a word of opposition.

Whaling: While the WWF states that it opposes “commercial whaling,” it does support the slaughter of

whales by native tribes and under some other conditions. When asked directly about its policy, WWF is vague, stating: “WWF’s views on whether sustainable whaling should be permitted derive from its mission ‘to conserve nature and ecological processes and to help build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.’” In the past, WWF officials have clearly stated that “WWF International has the national WWF organizations behind it in the view that as soon as one can ensure a sustainable commercial harvest of the great whales under secure international control, then whaling will no longer be a WWF concern.”

Sport Hunting: As one would expect of an organization founded by hunters, the WWF does not oppose

the slaughter of animals with guns and other weapons for sport. Rather than working to stop the killing, the WWF believes that hunting should be regulated, arguing that wealthy trophy hunters can bring income to poorer nations. The WWF claims that it has no power to stop hunting, stating, “The decision to allow trophy hunting is a sovereign one made entirely by the governments concerned. … We will continue to monitor governments’ enforcement of important trade laws to ensure that trophy hunting is done within the legal standards of that area.”

Elephants: The WWF believes that culling—another way of saying “killing”—elephants is acceptable,

as is the trade in ivory, because the profits that it brings spur governments to keep elephants from going extinct. In 2000, U.S. News & World Report reported that WWF representatives travelled to Nairobi to ask the United Nations to lift the ban on the ivory trade in order to allow a “sustainable harvest of ivory for horns and hunting trophies.” The WWF’s bizarre view—that we must kill some animals now in order to save animals to kill later—has proved false time and again. The trade in ivory has only encouraged rampant poaching, the senseless slaughter of elephants. The WWF tries to duck the issue by falsely stating, “The decision to cull, or to select animals from the herd for removal or death, is indeed an agonizing choice, but it is one made entirely by the governments concerned and there is no international involvement in those decisions.”

Trapping: As with hunting and whaling, the WWF refuses to condemn the massive killing of animals with

steel-jaw leg-hold traps. While calling itself a “preservationist” organization that “seek[s] to be the voice for those creatures who have no voice,” the WWF stands back from the issue, stating that “the trade in furs, skins, and other products of animals that are not endangered isn’t the focus of our campaign.” But no matter how hard the WWF tries to “greenwash” its support of animal slaughter, its real message rings out loud and clear: Animals are ours to hunt, trap, kill, poison, and use as we see fit. And although appeals to preserve genetic diversity, ecosystems, and the planet sound good on paper, they mean little if what the WWF is really advocating is more efficient killing fields. Wolf Hunting Despite an ongoing international tourist boycott that was called in response to the wolf “control” program in Alaska, in which at least 100 wolves have been shot as of March 2004, the WWF is promoting several trips to Alaska throughout June, July, and August 2004 as part of “WWF Travel,” an “ecotourism” program. When asked why the WWF was sending its members to Alaska, effectively undermining efforts to save wolves in the state, the WWF travel desk representative stated that the WWF did not consider the matter of wolf-killing a priority.

The WWF has actively pressured government agencies in the United States, Europe, and Canada to greatly increase the amount of testing required for new and existing chemicals and pesticides. The result of WWF’s lobbying has been the establishment of some of the largest animal-testing programs of all time.

In the late 1990s, WWF actively lobbied for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) which was designed to screen thousands of chemicals for their potential to disrupt hormones. WWF invested substantial resources in the EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee, which designated a battery of tests to be used in the first tier of the two-tiered screening program. WWF did not appear bothered by the fact that six of the 11 tests are animal-poisoning studies requiring a minimum of 600 animals for each chemical tested. According to scientific estimates at the time, the WWF-backed endocrine testing program threatened to kill 6 million or more animals for the 10,000 chemicals slated to be tested. Fortunately, the EPA recognized that because of time and cost restraints, evaluating that many chemicals using the original battery of tests was not possible and is now moving toward more human-relevant, non-animal methods of screening for potentially endocrine-disrupting chemicals (see our webpage on the EDSP and EDSP21).

WWF was also a major force behind the European Union’s introduction of the chemical-testing plan known as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), which has already led to the deaths of approximately 800,000 animals.

WWF’s U.S. and Canadian offices also called for more testing of pesticides, despite the fact that about 7,500 animals are already killed for every active ingredient in every pesticide on the market, with additional animals killed in testing various formulations of the pesticide. As a result, the EPA now requires that certain pesticides be tested for “developmental neurotoxicity” using a test that kills upwards of 1,300 animals each time it is conducted. However, EPA has made provisions that allow for waivers of this test or conducting the assessment as part of another study, thereby reducing the number of animals used.

WWF attempts to justify its position by saying that “in the absence of effective, validated alternatives, WWF believes that limited animal testing is needed for the long-term protection of wildlife and people throughout the world.” However, there is nothing “limited” about the massive amount of animal testing that WWF has endorsed.

Dr. Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel laureate in medicine, pointed out in 1981: “It is simply not possible with all the animals in the world to go through new chemicals in the blind way that we have at the present time, and reach credible conclusions about the hazards to human health.” Now, 35 years later, millions of animals are still dying in painful chemical toxicity tests, and we are no closer to removing dangerous chemicals from the environment. WWF has put considerable effort into encouraging the adoption of regulations in Europe that would curb the production of toxic chemicals and people’s exposure to them, but has made little effort to develop or support regulations in the U.S. that would limit exposure.

While WWF has issued some statements in the past regarding the importance of developing alternatives to animal testing and not using “outdated or unnecessary animal tests”, it still seems to believe that testing on animals for human health and environmental safety purposes is appropriate and justified. Read what Sir Paul McCartney had to say to WWF on October 10, 2002, and March 24, 2003.

From an original article by to PETA.

Let’s Defund the World Wildlife Fund (Tax Fraud Investigation!) http://www.newsmax.com/DrewJohnson/Defund-World-Wildlife-Fund/2012/10/12/id/459740

Rhino Hunting With The WWF! http://www.pandaleaks.org/kill-it-to-save-it/

PETITION: Ask WORLD WILDLIFE FUND To Stop Supporting TROPHY HUNTING Before It’s Too Late!