Tag: wildlife trade

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International found imperiled wildlife parts for sale, possibly violating Nevada law, and canned lion hunts for sale in violation of SCI’s own rules

Humane Society International / United States

WASHINGTON – An undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International revealed dozens of items made from imperiled wildlife for sale last week at the Safari Club International convention in Reno, Nevada. These items included elephant skin furniture, paintings on elephant ears, hippo skulls and teeth, and stingray skin belts. SCI is one of the world’s largest trophy hunting advocacy groups. Offering these items for sale likely violates Nevada state law on wildlife trafficking, and HSUS and HSI have reported their findings to enforcement authorities.

The investigation also found that canned lion hunts, the sale of which SCI banned at its conventions as of February 4, 2018, were easily available for purchase in Reno last week.

Kitty Block, acting president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and president of Humane Society International, said: “The world’s leading trophy hunting industry group is apparently promoting, enabling, and profiting from the illegal wildlife trade and unethical hunting practices. Conservation laws and hunting ethics are thrown out the window by SCI when financial profit is involved, driving iconic wildlife such as African elephants toward extinction.

“Making money off the opportunity to kill these animals for bragging rights is something that most people around the world find appalling. It’s an elitist hobby of the 1 percent, and there is no place for trophy hunting in today’s world.”

As of January 1, 2018, it is unlawful for any person within the state of Nevada to “purchase, sell, offer for sale or possess with intent to sell any item that it, wholly, or partially, made of an animal part or byproduct derived from a shark fin, a lion of the species Panthera leo or any species of elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, leopard, cheetah, jaguar, pangolin, sea turtle, ray, mammoth, narwhal, walrus or hippopotamus.” Nev. Rev. Stat. § 597.905.

The investigators found more than a dozen convention vendors offering for sale and possessing with intent to sell wildlife products that appear to violate this law. The items include:

  • Paintings on elephant ears and skins;
  • An elephant skin bench;
  • Elephant leather boots, shoes, chaps, belts, and saddles;
  • Bracelets made from elephant hair;
  • An entire mammoth tusk;
  • Mammoth tusk carvings;
  • Stingray skin boots, shoes, belts and purses;
  • Boxes of hippo teeth;
  • A hippo skull table;
  • Hippo leather belts and boots;
  • Shark skin belts;
  • A knife with a handle made of narwhal tusk.

Investigators also found “canned” lion hunts for sale, in which customers can pay to shoot a captive-bred African lion in an enclosed area from which it cannot escape. Canned hunts are internationally scorned, and SCI claims that it does not allow such lion hunts to be sold at its conventions. Yet vendors, in an attempt to attract bookings of such hunts, showed investigators sample pictures of types of lions that may be killed, priced according to the age and size of the animal and his mane. One conference attendee told the investigators that he and his children participated in a canned hunt, killing “their” lion within 90 minutes. Canned hunt operators described baiting lions with meat, which they said they could do ahead of a trophy hunter’s arrival, to save time. One canned hunt operator told investigators if they wanted to kill a really big lion, he could special order one.

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International are releasing their investigation while the Dallas Safari Club convention is underway in Dallas, Texas, with some of the same vendors that were at the SCI convention last week. While Texas does not have the same laws prohibiting the sale of wildlife products as Nevada, the Dallas Safari Club has stated that it too opposes captive bred lion hunting. At least six exhibitors selling canned lion hunts at the SCI convention are also at the DSC convention. These include De Klerk Safaris, whose representatives told investigators that they buy lions from breeders and could special order a really big lion, and Mabula Pro Safaris, whose representative told investigators that they are the biggest breeder of lions in South Africa.

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International submitted its findings in writing to the Nevada Department of Wildlife on January 10, requesting investigation and enforcement of Nevada law. Any person who violates this law is guilty of a gross misdemeanor for the first offense, a category E felony for a second offense, and a category D felony for a third offense, in addition to civil penalties of up to $6,500.

Investigation Report HERE.

Photos/Video of the investigation HERE.

Media Contacts:

Rodi Rosensweig, 203-270-8929, RRosensweig@humanesociety.org

Nancy Hwa, 202-596-0808 (cell), nhwa@hsi.org

Countries must grasp vital chance to protect 152 wild animal species from trade exploitation including giraffes, sharks, elephants and white rhino, says Humane Society International ahead of CITES CoP18 in Sri Lanka

Humane Society International / United Kingdom

WASHINGTON—A proposal to give protection status to the woolly mammoth, a species that has been extinct for 10,000 years, is the latest attempt by conservation-minded countries to stop its genetic cousin the African elephant from following in the mammoth’s giant footsteps by slipping into extinction.

The proposal by Israel to afford the prehistoric mammoth Appendix II protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) taking place in Sri Lanka in May, could play a vital role in saving elephants who are being poached at the rate of around 30,000 animals a year. Unlike the demise of the mammoth, it is the global ivory trade that is decimating elephants. Although international trade in elephant ivory has been banned since 1990, traffickers often try to pass off ivory as legal mammoth ivory to circumvent the ban, because of its near identical appearance.

Israel’s proposal is one of 57 announced this week by CITES. Countries from around the world submitted the proposals seeking to increase or decrease protections for 152 wild animal species affected by international commercial trade. These include conflicting proposals on elephants, with nine African countries wanting to up-list the African elephants of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe from Appendix II to I in the face of an insatiable poaching crisis, whilst a proposal by Zambia seeks to down-list its elephants to Appendix II to allow international commercial trade in raw ivory. And Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, whose populations of the species are already on Appendix II, want to weaken existing restrictions on their ability, and that of South Africa whose elephant population is also on Appendix II, to export ivory to consumer countries.

Other species on the CITES agenda include the giraffe whose wild populations have declined by up to 40 percent in the last 30 years due to habitat loss and poaching, Mako sharks threatened by the Asian shark fin trade, Sri Lankan lizards imperilled by the exotic pet trade, giant guitarfish and 10 species of wedgefish declining due to over-fishing, and a proposal by Namibia to down-list the Southern white rhino and by Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) to allow trade in rhino horn.

Wildlife experts at Humane Society International, who will attend the CITES meeting in Sri Lanka, say that nations need to urgently reboot their approach to wildlife protection in the face of unsustainable trade driving species to the edge of extinction.

Kitty Block, president of Humane Society International, said: “Every single day, human-induced habitat loss, poaching, commercial trade and climate change are pushing more of our planet’s precious wild species towards extinction. We can no longer afford any complacency when it comes to saving wild animal species threatened by over-exploitation, and so as we welcome CITES proposals to establish new or increased protections, we urge nations to ensure that species conservation is approached as a necessity not a luxury, with pro-active trade restrictions imposed long before a species is at the extinction precipice.

With ivory traffickers exploiting the long-extinct mammoth so that they can further exploit imperilled elephants, the time is now for African and all other nations to unite in the fight to end the poaching epidemic and ensure all ivory markets are closed. Giraffes too need our urgent attention, having already disappeared from seven countries and now quietly slipping into extinction with the wild population at or just under 100,000. The time to act is now, before we lose them forever.”

CITES offers three levels of protection, and the proposals generally aim to list currently unlisted species, or to increase or decrease protection between Appendix I (which more or less prevents commercial international trade) and II (which allows trade under special conditions).

CITES proposals of note include:

    • Giraffe: Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Senegal have proposed to list the giraffe on CITES Appendix II. The species is currently not CITES-listed; its wild population has declined by between 36 percent and 40 percent over the last 30 years; it is threatened by poaching, and it is internationally traded: nearly 40,000 giraffes and their parts and products were imported to the U.S. from 2006-2015, including bone carvings (21,402), bones (4,789), trophies (3,744), skin pieces (3,008), bone pieces (1,903), skins (855), and jewellery (825).The latest International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species has added the Kordofan and Nubian subspecies of giraffes to the list of “critically endangered,” with fewer than 4,650 animals left. The reticulated, Thornicroft’s and West African giraffe subspecies were also listed as endangered or vulnerable. Giraffes have disappeared completely from Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Guinea, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria and Senegal.

 

    • African elephant: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria and Togo have proposed to transfer elephant populations of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe from Appendix II to Appendix I in order to offer maximum protection under CITES in the face of the ongoing threat posed by the unsustainable demand from the ivory trade, the uncertainty of the impact of that trade on the species across its range, and the enforcement problems that exist because the level of protection is inconsistent across the continent, with some populations protected under Appendix I and others under Appendix II.In a separate proposal, Zambia seeks to transfer its elephant population from Appendix I to II and to allow international trade in raw ivory for commercial purposes; and Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe have proposed to allow unlimited amounts of registered raw ivory from government-owned stocks to be traded to importing Parties verified by the Secretariat to have certain measures in place to, among other things, prevent re-export.

 

    • Woolly mammoth: Israel proposes to list the woolly mammoth in Appendix II to tackle the growing trade in mammoth ivory which can be used to launder illegal elephant ivory. To get around the elephant ivory ban, traders sometimes mix the two ivories together, and in the absence of a reliable and cost-effective test to distinguish between the two, the market in mammoth ivory is providing a dangerous cover for poached elephant ivory.

 

    • Mako sharks, giant guitarfishes and wedgefishes: sharks and rays have again broken the CITES record for numbers of countries proposing listings. Longfin and shortfin Mako sharks, six species of giant guitarfishes, and 10 species of wedgefishes have been proposed for listing on CITES Appendix II. All of these fish species are declining in the wild, mainly as a result of over-fishing, particularly for the lucrative Asian shark fin market.

 

  • Southern white rhino: Namibia has proposed to transfer its population from Appendix I to II, and Eswatini has proposed a measure that would allow international trade in rhino horns for commercial purposes. There are an estimated 20,000 southern white rhino in Africa, and they remain threatened by poaching for their horn. Poaching in South Africa, which is home to around 90 percent of southern white rhino, has escalated enormously in recent years.

Facts:

  • This will be the 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, which will take place in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from May 23 to June 3.
  • 183 countries are CITES Parties and 64 of them, plus the European Union representing 28 member states, submitted proposals for consideration at the upcoming meeting.
  • If approved at the meeting, the proposals could affect the protective status under CITES of 574 taxa including 17 mammals, 4 birds, 51 reptiles, 57 amphibians, 18 fish, 20 invertebrates, and 407 plants.
  • CITES offers three levels of protection for species affected by international trade:
  1. 1. Appendix I is for species threatened with extinction which are or may be affected by trade. Trade in specimens of these species must be subject to particularly strict regulation in order not to endanger further their survival and must only be authorized in exceptional circumstances.
  2. 2. Appendix II is for species which although not necessarily now threatened with extinction may become so unless trade in specimens of such species is subject to strict regulation in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival; and other species which must be subject to regulation in order that trade in specimens of certain species may be brought under effective control.
  3. 3. Appendix III is for species which any Party identifies as being subject to regulation within its jurisdiction for the purpose of preventing or restricting exploitation, and as needing the co-operation of other Parties in the control of trade.

Convention opens in Reno, Nevada, on January 9

Humane Society International / United States

WASHINGTON —Thousands of wildlife trophy hunters from around the world will gather in Reno, Nevada, for the annual Safari Club International convention January 9 through 12 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. At the event, they will have access to nearly 900 exhibitors, including companies that sell the experience of killing the world’s most iconic animals — African elephants, lions and leopards, and North American cougars, bears and wolves, among others — for their heads, hides, and other body parts.

Kitty Block, acting president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and president of Humane Society International, said, “The SCI convention is a huge gathering of people in the business of buying, selling and auctioning off dead animal parts and opportunities to slay wild animals for fun or bragging rights. SCI’s claim of concern for wildlife conservation is greatly undercut by its agenda of advocating and celebrating the killing of the planet’s most threatened species.”

Hundreds of hunts on every continent except Antarctica will be auctioned off at the convention to benefit SCI. In 2016, according to federal tax filings, the convention raised more than $7.7 million in net revenue for SCI. The annual convention is a major funding source for SCI’s operations and agenda to influence pro-trophy hunting government policy. SCI’s political action committee, the Hunter Defense Fund, works to elect pro-trophy hunting politicians.

The SCI Record Book belies its claim that it is a conservation organization, offering members the opportunity to compete to win nearly 50 awards for killing elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos, bears, wolves, antelopes and other animals. In 2015, the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International analyzed the SCI books and found that since 1959, SCI members have killed at least 2,007 African lions, 1,888 African leopards, 791 African elephants, and 572 rhinos, including 93 critically endangered black rhinos as of that publication date, with more animals killed since then. The most prolific trophy hunters are awarded the World Hunting Award ring, which some have called the “Super Bowl ring of hunting.”

Block added: “We urge everyone, including government decision-makers, to challenge the conservation claims made by SCI and call them out as an industry group with a product to sell that is not beneficial to anyone, least of all imperiled wildlife.”

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International urge the public to speak out against trophy hunting.

PHOTOS HERE from 2016 SCI Convention

Media Contacts:

Rodi Rosensweig, 203-270-8929, RRosensweig@humanesociety.org

Nancy Hwa, 202-676-0808 (direct), 202-596-0808 (cell), nhwa@hsi.org

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