Lions, Elephants, and Wolves
What ties them together?
What do they have in common?
Where have we failed them?
How we can take action to help them.
What do they have in common?
Where have we failed them?
How we can take action to help them.
All of these species are threatened or endangered due to poaching, trophy hunting, or government agency sanctioned "management" policies. They are all in some stage of controversy between trophy hunting organizations, conservationists, and the USFWS as to their protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Services has a say in whether or not lions in Africa should be listed as "threatened" versus "endangered" status under the Endangered Species Act.
They decided to go with "threatened".
https://www.causes.com/campaigns/3885-tell-usfws-to-protect-african-lions-under-the-endangered-species-act
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/what-we-do/pdf/African_Lion_News_Release10-27-14.pdf
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/what-we-do/african_lion.html
http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=FWS-R9-ES-2012-0025
This ruling as it affects trophyhunters is explained by the Safari Club International:
USFWS proposed lion rule ~ How does this affect me as a hunter?
https://firstforhunters.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/usfws-proposed-lion-rule-how-does-this-affect-me-as-a-hunter/
The US is considering lifting its ban on trophyhunting in Zimbabwe
Vital elephant hunting ban may get killed
We can take action by contacting Director Dan Ashe and telling him lifting the ban on trophyhunting elephants is a really bad idea. The elephant population is currently under the worst duress imaginable due to poaching, so trophyhunting elephants seems to be something that needs to end pronto.
Adding your voice is easy. Just send an email to the US Fish and Wildlife Service by writing to dan_ashe@fws.gov and express your support for elephants by calling for the continuation of the "trophy" hunting import ban.
You can also reach out to the Service on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/usfws and Twitter. https://twitter.com/USFWSInternatl
Please get your message out before April 1, 2015.
U.S. sued over policy on killing endangered wildlife
Activists say the rule that hunters must know they are killing a protected animal allows the Justice Department to abdicate prosecution.
May 29, 2013|By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
Environmental groups are taking the Justice Department to court over a policy that prohibits prosecuting individuals who kill endangered wildlife unless it can be proved that they knew they were targeting a protected animal.
Critics charge that the 15-year-old McKittrick policy provides a loophole that has prevented criminal prosecution of dozens of individuals who killed grizzly bears, highly endangered California condors and whooping cranes as well as 48 federally protected Mexican wolves.
The policy stems from a Montana case in which Chad McKittrick was convicted under the Endangered Species Act for killing a wolf near Yellowstone National Park in 1995. He argued that he was not guilty because he thought he was shooting a wild dog.
McKittrick appealed the conviction and lost, but the Justice Department nonetheless adopted a policy that became the threshold for taking on similar cases: prosecutors must prove that the individual knowingly killed a protected species.
The lawsuit charges that the policy sets a higher burden of proof than previously required, arguing, "The DOJ's McKittrick policy is a policy that is so extreme that it amounts to a conscious and express abdication of DOJ's statutory responsibility to prosecute criminal violations of the ESA as general intent crimes."
WildEarth Guardians and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance said they intend to file a lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Arizona, one of the states where Mexican wolves were reintroduced. The Times received an advance copy of the lawsuit.
Federal wildlife managers who are responsible for protecting endangered animals have long criticized the policy as providing a pretext for illegal trophy hunters and activists.
A June 2000 memo from the law enforcement division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Wyoming warned, "As soon as word about this policy gets around the West, the ability for the average person to distinguish a grizzly bear from a black bear or a wolf from a coyote will decline sharply. Under this policy a hen mallard is afforded more protection than any of the animals listed as endangered."
Earlier this year, a man in Texas shot and killed a whooping crane, telling authorities that he thought it was a legally hunted Sandhill crane. He was not charged under the Endangered Species Act but was prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which carries lesser penalties.
Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians compared the policy to "district attorneys rescinding speeding tickets issued by traffic cops when then speeder claims he or she believed the legal speed limit was greater than what was posted, and that he or she had no intention to break the law."
The unspoken attitude toward endangered species among some western ranchers is summed up by the expression: "Shoot. Shovel. And shut up," suggesting that the most efficient way to deal with the unwanted bureaucracy associated with protected species was to quietly remove them.
Mexican wolves have been decimated by illegal shootings, causing the death of more than half of the animals released in the wild since the start of the reintroduction program in 1998.
Forty-eight Mexican wolves have been illegally killed, according to the lawsuit. It notes that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service anticipated that illegal shooting and trapping was likely to be a major impediment to recovery of the species, but the agency thought that strong enforcement could discourage the illegal acts.
Wolves are often killed by hunters who say they thought they were shooting at coyotes, which may be shot on sight in most states.
Grand Canyon Wolf That Made Epic Journey Shot Dead in Utah
A local hunter said he mistook Echo, a female gray wolf from Wyoming, for a coyote.
Mistaken identity is also frequently given in mix-ups between black bears and grizzly bears that lead to grizzly deaths.
The Wyoming U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo included this example:
In May 1996, a man hunting for black bear in Wyoming shot and killed a collared grizzly bear, an endangered species.
The hunter and three friends moved the bear carcass, destroyed the collar, dug a hole, dumped in the bear, poured lye over it and covered the hole.
When the animal's remains were recovered, the man said he thought he was shooting at a common black bear.
The U.S. attorney's office reviewed the case and declined to prosecute it, citing the McKittrick policy.
julie.cart@latimes.com
We can take action here to ask that this policy be overturned:
Thank you to Living with Wolves @LWWolves for providing the information concerning the McKittrick policy and the petition to overturn it.
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