The NRA, our African elephant poaching crisis,
and the USA ivory ban.
http://wildlifeofafrica.blogspot.com/p/ivory-sales-pre-ban-legal.html
New Harvard research debunks NRA's favorite talking points
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/gun-research-harvard-nra
This is the same NRA, that wishes to block the U.S.A. ivoryban that could help to stop poaching elephants in Africa for their tusks.
The NRA Is Quietly Fighting For Your Right To Kill Elephants For Their Ivory
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/12/nra-ivory-elephant-hunting_n_5671332.html
Reposted from The Dodo:
Photo copyright: Jane Michaelides Smith, Kianzabe Designs
Vital Elephant Hunting Ban
May Get Killed
By Elephants DC
March 17, 2015
In 2014 the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) made a powerful statement to protect elephants when it imposed its"trophy" hunting import bans in Zimbabwe and Tanzania https://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ID=2E6FF2A2-E10F-82BC-DAE08807810E3C6B for Americans. But now, we regret to report, these elephants may once again be at risk — unless we raise our voices loudly to support them.
Earlier this year, Elephants DC http://www.elephantsdc.org/ met with the USFWS and learned that the Agency will be deciding very soon on whether the United States will lift its bans or extend them.
This is a critical decision that will have a direct impact on two of the African nations where elephant populations are most seriously threatened. Given the crisis elephants face worldwide, the impact of this pair of bans is wider reaching than Zimbabwe and Tanzania, as well.
We believe the USFWS should stand firmly behind the ban. We believe they should extend it (and even strengthen it). However, hunters of endangered species at Safari Club International and others strongly disagree. They're demanding the import bans of elephant and rhino corpses be lifted. And although they're a small minority, they're a vocal one — well organized, https://www.conservationforce.org/images/ZimWorkshopEOS7D748.jpg and with deep pockets.
https://www.thedodo.com/us-hunting-advocates-sue-govt--523255161.html
Let's make sure the trophy hunters don't get the last word on this one. Here are five reasons why the bans should stay in place:
1. The wildlife crisis that prompted the bans is still underway, and the governments of Tanzania and Zimbabwe have failed to stop corruption.
The USFWS had clear, powerful reasons for imposing the ban last year. Elephant populations in those nations were plummeting, while government corruption ran wild, doing little if anything to stop the slaughter. In its announcement of the ban, http://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ID=2E6FF2A2-E10F-82BC-DAE08807810E3C6B the USFWS rightly condemned the "questionable management practices, a lack of effective law enforcement and weak governance" in these nations.
Protecting elephants from illegal poaching requires a strong government commitment to fight illegal poachers and protect its wildlife resources. And Zimbabwe and Tanzania have yet to pull their weight. In fact, they've made things worse.
Tanzania has lost half of its elephant population to poaching in the past five years, according to a powerful expose of Tanzanian corruption http://eia-international.org/reports/vanishing-point-criminality-corruption-and-the-devastation-of-tanzanias-elephants released by the Environmental Investigation Agency last November. When Chinese officials recently visited Tanzania, they loaded up on illegal ivory products and sent them back home to China in diplomatic bags on the presidential plane. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29929423
Meanwhile, in recent months, the Government of Zimbabwe has made it clear that protecting its wildlife is lower than low on its priority list. It's been widely reported that Zimbabwe recently kidnapped more than 80 baby elephants http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150206-elephant-conservation-zimbabwe-culling-animals/ from their mothers from Hwange National Park for export to China and other nations. These kidnapped elephants face a future of miserable confinement, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150309-baby-elephants-zimbabwe-export-mugabe-wildlife-trafficking/ a fate worse than death. And despite the outcry of conservationists across the globe, the Government of Zimbabwe has so far maintained that it is proceeding
http://www.elephantsdc.org/statement-from-zimbabwe.html with these cruel plans.
As if that weren't appalling enough, the Government of Zimbabwe recently served a baby elephant for dinner at a lavish birthday celebration for its president. In an even more bizarre twist, the baby elephant was reportedly killed and eaten as a punishment https://www.thedodo.com/mugabe-elephant-birthday-baby-1019870464.html to elephants who encroached on farmlands. While human-elephant conflict is a real problem, there are better ways to resolve conflict between intelligent animals rather than serving up sentient beings on a dinner platter.
"[Elephants] are highly social animals," explains Professor Andrew Dobson, an ecologist and biologist at Princeton University. "Their abusive treatment accurately matches that handed out to China and Zimbabwe's political prisoners. It causes me to wonder why such Nations are ever invited to attend meetings of international trade and political organizations; they are historical and political anomalies whose people [should] see their leaders and politicians as shallow and greedy manipulators of the truth."
The USFWS was right to ban trophy hunting imports from nations with such deplorable wildlife management practices. And until these governments shape up, the bans should remain in place.
Here are the miserable conditions of the kidnapped baby elephants awaiting export to China. Photo courtesy of Elephants DC
2. The currently available data on Zimbabwe elephant populations can't be trusted.
Scientists and elephant experts have agreed that worldwide, the elephant population is disappearing http://m.news24.com/news24/Green/News/Tracking-the-demise-of-Africas-elephants-20150310 at a frightening rate, with nearly 100 elephants killed a day. Poaching could drive elephants to extinction in the wild in as little as 10 years.
However, when it comes to breaking down these populations among individual nations, things become trickier. Often, governments and organizations that seek to profit off of killing elephants will try to exaggerate the number of a nation's elephants and downplay any population declines.
When we met with USFWS on January 30, we learned that, in addition to the Government of Zimbabwe, only two trophy hunting lobbying groups had submitted data to USFWS on reasons why the ban should be lifted. According to the data from these questionable sources, elephant populations are doing just fine in Zimbabwe, making a ban on trophy hunting unnecessary.
But we don't believe this is data that the USFWS can rely on when making important decisions on how to save keystone elephant populations from utter decimation in the wild. The people who travel to Africa to kill endangered species paint a picture of Zimbabwe as a relative paradise for elephants, but that's just what they want us to see. The current picture of elephants in Zimbabwe is likely much more grim. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-18/zimbabwe-elephant-population-dwindles-amid-threat-from-poachers According to our own elephant expert in Zimbabwe, the nation's elephant populations have decreased considerably over the past 12 years, including a 40 percent decrease in the Zambezi Valley and a 75 percent decrease in Sebungwe.
As Bloomberg recently reported, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-18/zimbabwe-elephant-population-dwindles-amid-threat-from-poachers the number of elephants in Zimbabwe is plundering. Instead of numbering over 100,000 as the Government of Zimbabwe claims, it is more likely that the population of elephants is significantly lower. It is incredibly concerning that there is a current lack of accurate, reliable data on the true number of elephants currently in Zimbabwe. And given the rate of poaching overall, it is especially clear that elephant numbers are continuing to decline annually.
When facing a population decline of that magnitude, it is vital that the bans on trophy hunting imports stay in place. Those elephants still remaining on our planet need to be protected — not killed.
3. The ban sends a strong message to other nations that may seek to model themselves after Zimbabwe and Tanzania.
Considering the negligent and often corrupt wildlife management practices of the Tanzanian and Zimbabwean governments, the last thing elephants need is for more countries to follow in their footsteps. Yet, recently the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was elected chairman of the 54-nation African Union, which could lead other nations to model their wildlife "conservation" tactics after his.
That's why the USFWS's ban is so important. The ban doesn't just tell the Government of Zimbabwe that its practices towards elephants are unacceptable. It tells the entire world that the United States will not tolerate any such nefarious corruption. At a time when elephants are so at risk in so many nations, this message needs to ring loud and clear.
A family of elephants at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. Photo: JoeyPyrek / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
4. Elephants are worth far more alive than they are as dead "trophies."
As we mentioned above, the trophy hunting lobbyists will tell you that elephants are doing just fine in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, so the government can "spare" a few to be killed on their hunting safaris. But worse, they'll even try to convince you that trophy hunting is good for conservation. http://deadspin.com/nra-secretly-backs-group-aiming-to-save-elephants-now-1688221469 People who hunt endangered species argue that killing elephants for trophies actually "helps to save elephants" because of the tourism revenue it brings into the country.
This is deeply twisted logic. Killing elephants doesn't save them. The one-time revenue boost from hunting an elephant is nothing compared to the tourist dollars that a living elephant can bring in. A recent study http://iworry.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/09/Dead-or-Alive-Final-LR.pdf found that a living elephant can bring a nation more than $1.6 million in tourism dollars over its lifetime. And that's not even factoring in the revenue that an elephant's children can bring in over their lifetimes.
Killing the elephant cuts all that short. So does selling an elephant calf for export to zoos,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141217-zimbabwe-china-elephants-zoos-tuli-botswana-south-africa/ as the Government of Zimbabwe is poised to do to the more than 80 kidnapped baby elephants. It's a short-sighted strategy based on greed that prioritizes the desire for immediate cash profit over a long-term investment in the future of its wildlife and its country.
Trophy hunting as "conservation" is just a flat-out bad business practice. There are other ways — sustainable ways — to increase tourism revenue and promote wildlife conservation.
By maintaining the ban on trophy hunting imports from Zimbabwe and Tanzania, the USFWS can send a strong message that sustainable, long-term solutions are the only acceptable ones.
5. Elephants are intelligent, gentle, emotionally complex creatures - not trophies!
Ultimately, we believe any discussion of trophy hunting is fundamentally flawed because it treats an elephant as a commercial product that can be bought, sold, and murdered for a rich person's entertainment. But an elephant is not a trophy. An elephant is an intelligent, noble being who deserves our protection. A trophy is won by a person who has created stellar music, for instance, or awarded to an athlete for winning a soccer match.
Zimbabwe is selling off its baby elephants as if they were a sack of beans, instead of a group of socially complex, sensitive, and smart beings. Elephant calves, who are dependent on their mothers, belong to a highly evolved, compassionate, and family-oriented species. Removing vulnerable and fragile baby elephants with complex needs from the wild is unethical and inhumane.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150309-baby-elephants-zimbabwe-export-mugabe-wildlife-trafficking/
When an elephant is killed by a trophy hunter, or murdered by a poacher, or kidnapped and sold, that elephant's entire family suffers. Mother elephants mourn the loss of their babies deeply. Wildlife crime creates a cycle of pain and death that spirals down the path toward extinction — unless we stop it.
The USFWS's ban on trophy hunting imports from Zimbabwe and Tanzania therefore is the least our government can do to protect these vulnerable, gentle giants. Lifting the ban would be unconscionable.
A baby elephant at Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. Photo: Lindsay Maizland / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Elephants need your voice.
We need more than rhetoric decrying wildlife crime. We need the US government to have the courage to take action to stop it.
Until the situation improves dramatically in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, lifting the bans on importing the corpses of endangered species should not be an option. In fact, we are in favor of much stronger sanctions to protect these elephants.
But if the hunting lobbyists are the only ones speaking out about the ban, they might be successful in getting what they want. That's why it's important that all of us who desire a long and healthy future for wild elephants need to speak out and support the USFWS in extending these essential "trophy" import bans from Zimbabwe and Tanzania.
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.
We must all raise our voices to support action in the US to stop the slaughter of elephants in Tanzania and Zimbabwe and across Africa. Speak up today!
To learn more about our work to promote elephant welfare and end the global ivory trade, follow us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/elephantsdc
and visit our site at www.elephantsdc.org.
Reposted from Huffington Post:
The NRA Is Quietly Fighting For Your Right To Kill Elephants For Their Ivory
The Huffington Post|By Nick Wing
Posted: 08/12/2014 1:56 pm EDT Updated: 08/12/2014 2:59 pm EDT
Last year, people around the world watched as a gun lobbyist with his own NRA-sponsored cable TV show http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/tony-makris-elephant_n_3989341.html stalked a large bull elephant in the African bush, raised his rifle and shot it two times in the face, killing it. The hunter, NRA strategist Tony Makris, and his guide later sipped champagne and relished the "special" act of bringing back the animal's ivory to camp.
The segment was filmed for part of an "Under Wild Skies" show that was later canceled by the NBC Sports Network http://deadspin.com/nbc-sports-network-cancels-nra-sponsored-elephant-hunti-1417367389 after international outrage. It served as a graphic reminder that a number of African nations still allow hunters to purchase permits -- some 1,000 of which are issued to Americans every year
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/05/06/controversy-swirls-around-the-recent-u-s-suspension-of-sport-hunted-elephant-trophies/-- to kill elephants from their ever-dwindling populations,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/ivory-trade-elephants-extinct_n_5631782.html even amid reports that illegal poaching already claims the lives of up to 35,000 African elephants a year. This is allowed for the stated purpose of conservation: The hefty fees paid by these tourists are supposed to go toward efforts to rehabilitate and protect wildlife on these reserves, though critics say the process is marred http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/hunting_is_a_setback_to_wildlife_conservation/ by corruption and ineffectiveness. More stringent bans were recently enacted in some nations following catastrophic declines of elephant populations.
http://africageographic.com/blog/botswana-hunting-ban-takes-effect/
But this hunting isn't just for sport (and supposed "conservation"). It's also for the elephants' valuable ivory tusks, trophies that American hunters had, until recently, largely been permitted to ship back to the United States for non-commercial purposes. According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data in a recent National Geographic report, http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/05/06/controversy-swirls-around-the-recent-u-s-suspension-of-sport-hunted-elephant-trophies/ several hundred sport-hunted elephant trophies -- including tusks, skins and bones -- have been imported into the U.S. each year over the past decade. While the sale of this ivory is banned, the practice has given rise to a system that allows hunters and poachers to see elephants in much the same way: The bigger the tusks, the better the prize. Language on the websites for Safari Club International, http://www.scirecordbook.org/african-elephant/ a hunting advocacy group, and other African safari tours http://www.bulletsafaris.com/elephant-hunting.html both contain language touting elephants that are likely to carry more or "really good ivory."
Trophy hunters recently suffered a setback in their quest for ivory, however, when President Barack Obama's administration unveiled a set of efforts designed to restrict the material's trade in the U.S., which for years has been the second-largest retail market http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/us/wildlife-trafficking-bounty/ for illegal ivory, behind only China. In April, the FWS announced a suspension
http://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ID=2E6FF2A2-E10F-82BC-DAE08807810E3C6B in ivory imports from elephants killed in Tanzania and Zimbabwe during 2014, claiming that even legal hunting in these countries "is not sustainable and is not currently supporting conservation efforts that contribute towards the recovery of the species." Trophy imports from other nations are still allowed,
http://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/factsheet-import-leopard-elephant-sport-hunted-trophy-2013.pdf provided the hunter receives proper documentation under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
These new regulations followed a higher-profile set of restrictions http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/11/us-ivory-ban_n_4768315.html cracking down on the sale of items containing ivory, unless the seller could provide documentation that items were more than 100 years old or were imported into the U.S. prior to regulations governing ivory sales. These new guidelines outraged the National Rifle Association, http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2014/2/obama-administrations-proposed-ban-on-domestic-sale-of-ivory-could-impact-gun-owners.aspx which claimed they were an attack on gun owners wishing to sell firearms that contained ornamental ivory.
The NRA found their preferred solution in the form of a pair of Lawful Ivory Protection bills sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.). In a release http://www.nraila.org/legislation/federal-legislation/2014/7/update-on-proposed-ban-on-the-domestic-sale-of-ivory-and-importation-of-elephant-trophies.aspx decrying the administration's "overreach of authority," the group called for members to stand up for "honest, law-abiding Americans" wishing to sell their ivory-containing possessions by calling on their representatives to support these bills. Tucked away in the last sentence was a mention of the legislation's secondary purpose, to protect the right of Americans to legally kill elephants for their ivory.
"Your actions today may determine if the sale and trade of firearms that contain ivory, as well as the importation of sport-hunted elephants, will be banned," it read.
Indeed, S.2587 - Lawful Ivory Protection Act of 2014 https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2587/text would amend existing laws to ensure that they don't "prohibit or restrict the importation of such ivory that was lawfully importable into the United States on February 24, 2014," before the more recent trophy import laws went into effect. So while the NRA claims to be fighting for the little gun owner's right to more easily sell an antique pistol with an ivory grip, it's also fighting to make sure the wealthy safari-goer can not just hunt for African elephants, but do so in hopes of bringing home the largest ivory trophy.
Just wondering what happens when the
"legal ivory inventory" is exhausted?
Looks like a gateway to encourage illegal ivory poaching to us.
Pre~Ban Ivory Sales
What is legal?
Will it encourage illegal elephant poaching?
What we can do about it.
Actions for elephants listed here, thank you! >
http://wildlifeofafrica.blogspot.com/p/elephants.html
What is legal?
Will it encourage illegal elephant poaching?
What we can do about it.
Actions for elephants listed here, thank you! >
http://wildlifeofafrica.blogspot.com/p/elephants.html
A loophole in the USA federal ivory ban allows the sale of ivory in the USA, if that ivory was in possession of the seller before the 1989 CITES ban on sale of elephant ivory tusks.
There are methods to date the ivory being sold.
Nuke tests offer a chance to bust ivory dealers. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/nuke-tests-offer-a-chance-to-bust-ivory-
Study~ measuring carbon age in ivory could help combat poaching
How bomb tests could date elephant ivory
Nuke test radiation can fight poachers: age & legality of ivory revealed by carbon-14 dating
Cold war radioactivity can date illegal elephant ivory
The problem, as we see it, is that any sale of elephant tusk ivory will simply fuel the market demand for ivory, and the horror of illegal elephant poaching will continue.
Here is one company that continues to sell "pre ban ivory". Judging from the tone of their position, they seem to have a problem with anyone wishing a 100% ban on ivory sales in the USA.
Fine. They are in their right to hold that opinion. We here at African Wildlife believe that preserving the future of African elephant populations far outweighs the opinion of those who run the business at Elephant Ivory Tusks: http://www.elephantivorytusks.com/index.html
So, what can we do?
If you reside in the USA, you can contact your state representatives and senators, requesting that they take a leadership role and initiate a total ban on ivory sales in your state. If outside of the USA, you can sign the petitions requesting that the USA uphold the current ivory ban that has been initiated.
All information for these actions is here:
We who wish to keep the ivory ban in place can use the same contact numbers in the article published by the NRA, wishing to overturn the USA ivory ban.
Call and say "please keep the ivory ban in place, in order to save our elephants from being driven into extinction."
Elephants or antique ivory gun handles....this is a no brainer.
All contact info to call and support the ivory ban:
Reposted from NRA~ILA:
Obama Administration's Proposed Ban on Domestic Sale of Ivory Could Impact Gun Owners
Posted on February 28, 2014
On February 11, 2014, the White House announced a National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking. One of the many aspects of the National Strategy is to ban the commercial trade of elephant ivory inside the United States. The Administration plans on banning the domestic sale of legally owned ivory in an upcoming rule.
In response to the White House's announcement, the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing titled, "International Wildlife Trafficking Threats to Conservation and National Security" (Hearing may be viewed here). http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2014/2/obama-administrations-proposed-ban-on-domestic-sale-of-ivory-could-impact-gun-owners.aspx
Why does this matter to every NRA member? This is another attempt by this anti-gun Administration to ban firearms based on cosmetics and would render many collections/firearms valueless.
Any firearm, firearm accessory, or knife that contains ivory, no matter how big or small, would not be able to be sold in the United States, unless it is more than 100 years old. This means if your shotgun has an ivory bead or inlay, your revolver or pistol has ivory grips, your knife has an ivory handle, or if your firearm accessories, such as cleaning tools that contain any ivory, the item would be illegal to sell.
Please email and call the White House at 202-456-1111 and email and call the Fish and Wildlife Service at 1-800-344-9453, to let them know you oppose the ban on commercial sale and trade of legally owned firearms with ivory components.
Also, please call your U.S. Representative at 202-224-3121 and tell them the same.
Your actions today may determine if these firearms that contain ivory will be banned. We will continue to keep you informed as this issue progresses.
Tags:"National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking", Ivory, fish and wildlife service, gun ban
No comments:
Post a Comment