Ever since Trump was elected President, we knew, in the pits of our stomach, that this day would come. His sons would use their influence to expand their bloodthirsty pastime. Ryan Zinke has announced an International Wildlife Conservation Council which will advise the USFWS on the supposed advantages of international trophy hunting for conservation.
There is a two week public comment period to denounce this council. Please make sure that you speak out! Cecil the lion died two and a half years ago and the world roared. Let us roar on on November 25, 2017 at Secretary Zinke's despicable effort to equate killing with conservation.
PUBLIC COMMENTS: This is by far the most important and absolutely necessary part of this action. No matter what else you do, please write personalized public comment. If you were impacted by Cecil's death, share your feelings. Additional, scientific talking points are below.
Comments are due on November 24 at 11:59 EDT and emailed to joshua_winchell@fws.gov or mailed to Joshua Winchell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge System, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803.
Please choose 2 or 3 of the following talking points and re-word them into your own words as much as possible. Please also include any personal feelings you have - remaining civil. Perhaps share thoughts on Cecil.
- I oppose the proposed International Wildlife Conservation Council. Studies have repeated shown that trophy hunting does not aid in conservation. Over the last several decades, big game hunting has been the primary, in many cases only method of conservation, yet populations of wildlife continue to plummet.
- Big game hunting is often unsustainable. For instance, only between 20,000 and 35,000 wild lions remain in Africa but 6,000 are killed each year by trophy hunters. That means between 2 and 3% of the popular is killed each year solely by big game hunters. This is NOT sustainable - particularly in light of other pressures on population including poaching, deaths from conflicts with ranchers and habitat loss.
- Trophy hunting works the opposite of natural selection. Nature targets the weakest but hunters target the biggest and the strongest. Hunters want the lion with the biggest mane or tusk. Often, these animals - the oldest, wisest, strongest - play critical roles in their populations. They are the protectors, leaders and their removal puts their populations at risk. It might mean that other individuals start disobeying rules, wrecking havoc with livestock, or that another male lion might move in and kill the cubs of the hunted lion. As a result, the death of an individual animal due to hunting can and often does have a ripple effect.
- Over the last 100 years, hunting has been the main conservation method employed in main countries yet wildlife numbers keep declining. If trophy hunting was so great for conservation, why have African lions declined by 95% since the 1940's? The numbers simply do not support the assertion that trophy hunting benefits conservation.
- Despite assertions that trophy hunting helps communities, most of the money goes to middle men and does not make its way to local communities.
- Trophy hunting can be linked to poaching. This can range from instances like with Cecil the lion, where hunters break the law, to poachers using trophy hunting as a smokescreen for a more in depth poaching operation.
- Trophy hunting fees incentivize managers to inflate numbers to bring in more money, putting species at risk.
- As we saw by the visceral reaction to Cecil the Lion, trophy hunting is simply not morally acceptable to most Americans. Our society sees it as outdated, cruel and needless. Please do not expand this elitist and brutal pastime but instead acknowledge that most Americans are now gravitating to more non-consumptive activities such as wildlife watching, bird watching, hiking, kayaking and the like.
- IF THE COUNCIL GOES FORWARD, I nominate Born Free CEO and General Counsel, Parsham Khetan to sit on the council.
- For the foregoing reasons, I oppose the creation of an International Wildlife Conservation Council.
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Write your own, civil comments or copy and paste the following:
I oppose the creation of an International Conservation Council to promote US trophy hunting abroad. Studies have repeated demonstrated that this is not an effective method of conservation and Cecil's death demonstrated that most Americans find this pastime abhorrent. Please abandon plans to go forward with this council. #NoMoreCecils. 🦁
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