One of the most effective, if often controversial on the domestic level, of the world’s acts of conservation legislation is the U.S. Endangered Species Act (EAS). That’s because it recognizes the need to not just protect individual animals and plants that are of an endangered species, but to protect the habitat they require to survive.
But, many other countries have less effective legislation, or if they have it, lack the economic means to provide enforcement. Whether through lack of primary resources from which to generate money, the lingering effects of colonization, government corruption, or a combination of those or for other reasons, the situation is dire for a range of non-America species.
The United States of America, by virtue of its wealth, deficit notwithstanding, is a primary part of the problem. In 2016, the U.S. imported 60 percent of animal trophies from just six African countries, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), with the elephant being one of the most popular trophy species. The U.S. president’s own sons like to kill elephants.
The U.S. is a massive market to countries that contain the native habitats of the animals and plants Americans want. Whether orchids, rosewood, tropical songbirds, reef fish – or trophies of charismatic large animals – people in wealthy countries have the ability to pay, and thus demand is greatest. And the USA, like western Europe, is particularly “into” the concept of trophies.
Dan Ashe, CEO of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, got it right when he recently pointed out that, “If elephants were native to the U.S. they would not be hunted, and neither would lions, rhinos, or leopards.” Songbirds have long been protected in North America and much of western Europe where, ironically, there is the greatest amount of knowledge about their conservation needs.
Trophy hunters claim the money they pay for licences to kill these magnificent and endangered animals fuels conservation. U.S. president Donald Trump is only partly right in saying the money goes to corruption, but sadly failed to recognize the sacrifice of hundreds of rangers killed in Africa each year trying to protect those same animals from poachers.
Poachers aren’t trophy hunters, but trophy hunting, to the degree that it involves the import of products like skins and ivory derived from the animals killed, encourages poaching efforts by easing restrictions on international movement of the “products.”
But, research and the comments by Mexican professor of economics Alejandro Nadal, a world expert on the subject, shows that, as Nadal reportedly commented, “…the money generated through trophy hunting is totally insufficient for sustainable conservation, even if there is no corruption.” It’s past time to stop all trophy hunting imports to the U.S., moving on from the ban on elephant ivory to include all of the “big five” these wealthy wildlife cutthroats so lust to kill, the lion, (spotted) leopard, rhino, elephant, and cape buffalo, and end the myth that they care about conservation.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry