CA M PA I G N U P DAT E
TRUMP’S “WILDLIFE CONSERVATION” COUNCIL SHOOTS TO KILL T “The council is a sham, and it’s illegal.
That’s why we’re suing to shut it down.”
easier to bring those animals’ heads, hides, tusks and other body parts back to the United States,” says Zak Smith, director of NRDC’s Wildlife Trade Initiative. “The council is a sham, and it’s illegal. That’s why we’re suing to shut it down.” Fifteen of the council’s 17 members are trophy hunters, and the majority have ties to either the National Rifle Association or the trophy hunting group Safari Club International—both of which have sued past administrations to expand the list of countries from which hunting trophies can legally be imported. One council member, Chris Hudson, was president of the Dallas chapter of the Safari Club in 2014 when the group sparked an enormous
public backlash after it auctioned off a permit for $350,000 to kill a critically endangered black rhino in Namibia. Another member, Cameron Hanes, has posted on social media, “It is because of hunters that our wildlife thrives,” advancing the much-disputed theory that the five- and six-figure hunting fees paid by wealthy Americans help to conserve the very animals they seek to kill. No fewer than four council members served as official hosts for the inaugural-related “Camouflage & Cufflinks” gala, yet Zinke failed to appoint a single wildlife scientist or other conservation expert. Among the animals that often rank high on trophy hunters’ wish lists are African species that are
already facing extreme pressure from poaching, habitat destruction and other threats. An explosion in the international market for ivory, for example, spawned a crisis of elephant poaching over the past two decades, while rising global demand for giraffe body parts such as hides and hunting trophies has helped drive the decline in the animal’s population by 40 percent over the past 30 years. “For animals already at high risk of extinction in the wild, we should be reducing stressors, not adding stressors like trophy hunting,” says Smith. Indeed, NRDC has been at the forefront of the fight to protect vulnerable species in Africa and elsewhere from the threats posed by wildlife trafficking. We’ve advocated at international forums such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to prevent any weakening of the global ban on the trade in rhino horn and to bolster protections for other imperiled wildlife. In 2016, we successfully prevailed on President Obama to enact a near-total ban on the U.S. ivory trade, and we won similar bans to shut down the trade at the state level in California, New York and Hawaii, the top three ivory markets in the country. And we’re poised to sue the Trump Administration over its failure to respond to our petition to add giraffes to the federal endangered species list. “Even as we press forward to fight for much[Continued on next page.]
ELEPHANTS © DAVID CLODE; GIRAFFES © SHERROD PHOTO; LION © ANDREW DEER
here’s little doubt that when America’s trophy-hunting elite gathered in Washington, D.C., for a “Camouflage & Cufflinks”– themed bash in January 2017, they were in a celebratory mood. True, the newly inaugurated president whom they were there to honor, Donald Trump, isn’t an enthusiastic hunter himself, but his sons Donald Jr. and Eric are. In fact, the brothers were named honorary co-chairs of the post-inaugural event, and an early version of the gala’s invitation promised that, for a contribution of $500,000 or more, guests not only could have their picture taken with President Trump but could opt for a multiday hunting excursion with one or both of the sons as well. The offer was dropped after the invite was leaked to the press and a public outcry ensued. Nevertheless, the event heralded a new era of insider access, enabling the trophy hunting lobby to advance its extreme agenda at the expense of some of the world’s most iconic—and increasingly imperiled—wild animals. Before the end of the year, Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, who as a congressman had himself received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the trophy hunting industry, established the so-called International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC). If the PRsavvy name seemed to imply a legitimate cross-section of qualified experts chosen to advise the Trump Administration on scientifically sound conservation policy, the reality was anything but. The federal law that governs the establishment of such advisory groups requires that they be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented” and not “inappropriately influenced by . . . any special interest.” In blatant defiance of the law, Zinke stacked the council almost exclusively with representatives of the trophy hunting and firearms industries. “Almost everyone appointed by Zinke to the council has a vested interest in making it easier to hunt and kill threatened and endangered species, such as elephants, giraffes and lions, and to make it