https://mobile.twitter.com/Sec...s/974296993857245186
So I saw this on Twitter this morning. Secretary Zinke tweeted his reply to a congressman about elephant permits. Of course the anti hunters are on there cheering this. Maybe we need to quit sitting back and complaining and start speaking out more and mobilizing others to do so. We should be going on Secretary Zinke and President Trumps twitter accounts and respectably telling them they are wrong and post articles backing our position on African sport hunting. Instead we are afraid of the “feces flinging chimps” that hang out there and of being pelted with rancid verbal tomatoes. We need to lobby relentlessly on this and never give up. Start writing to your congressmen and senators telling them to tell President Trump to reverse his policy on trophy imports.

https://www.washingtonexaminer...mported-one-elephant


Ryan Zinke: 'We have not imported one elephant'

by Josh Siegel

| March 15, 2018 11:57 AM


Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Thursday morning that his department has not authorized the import of any elephant trophies since the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will consider these imports from African countries on a case-by-case basis.

“We have not imported one elephant,” Zinke said in testimony about the Interior Department’s budget before the House Natural Resources Committee. His remarks came after conservation and animal rights groups have criticized the Trump administration's move to allow some imports, saying the new policy will be difficult to monitor.

The Fish and Wildlife Service in November moved to overturn an Obama-era ban on elephant trophy imports from Zimbabwe, before Trump intervened. After a public outcry, Trump said he had put the policy on hold pending further study.



In a memo issued this month, Fish and Wildlife said it will withdraw its effort, and instead will “grant or deny permits to import a sport-hunted trophy on a case-by-case basis.”

The agency faced criticism from unlikely places when it first tried to lift the ban, including conservative media personalities Laura Ingraham, Mike Cernovich, and Michael Savage. Prominent Republican politicians such as House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, also reacted negatively to ending the ban.

Zinke said the policy hasn’t changed, but Interior had to begin considering elephant imports on a case-by-case basis because of a prior court ruling.

In December, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found government officials implemented the Obama-era ban without following regulatory procedures, including a failure to open the decision to public comment.

“The court mandated we change the process, not the policy,” Zinke said Thursday. “We are 100 percent on board with the president’s policy.”

Under U.S. law, the remains of African elephant can be imported only if federal officials have determined that hunting them benefits the species. The fees paid to hunt the elephants are supposed to go into conservation programs.

http://thehill.com/policy/ener...mported-one-elephant


Zinke: ‘We have not imported one elephant’

BY MIRANDA GREEN - 03/15/18 12:47 PM EDT



Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday pushed back on criticism that the administration has greenlit new imports of African elephant trophies, telling a congressional committee that “we have not imported one elephant.”

Appearing before the House Natural Resources Committee to speak about the White House’s proposed fiscal 2019 budget, Zinke passed the buck on a new administration policy change that would open up elephant trophy imports on a case-by-case basis saying, “It’s not my policy.”

The policy, announced March 1, was established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), an agency under the Interior Department.

Zinke’s response came after Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said the administration’s decision to allow the imports “represents an administration under undue influence by the National Rifle Association.”

Zinke said that the Interior Department was “on board with the president’s policy,” an apparent distinction from what the latest FWS policy states.

President Trump, however, has not commented on the recent FWS decision. The last time he commented on elephant trophy imports, he called the act “terrible” and said, “I didn’t want elephants killed and stuffed and have the tusks brought back into this [country].”

Zinke’s was also noncommital in comments about the Interior Department’s January proposal to expand offshore drilling in public waters.

When first asked about a commitment he made in January to remove Florida from the list of state waters under consideration for drilling, Zinke told the committee, “Florida did not get an exemption.”

Zinke said that the Sunshine State was instead given special consideration because of its drilling moratorium off the Gulf Coast and the fact that every state representative on both sides of the aisle reached out to his office in opposition to drilling.

When asked later in the hearing again about Florida’s supposed exemption, Zinke clarified that there would be no drilling.

“My commitment is that we will do no new oil and gas platforms off the coast of Florida — but legally there is a process,” Zinke said.

He added that saying there would be an exemption created a big reaction but said, “My commitment remains steadfast."

Bloody hell!

At the beginning everyone thought Trump and Zinke would save hunting!

Just look how wrong we were!

This still seems far from crystal clear.

Mark

What is crystal clear is, Trumps word is worthless.

SAD!

In that field, we are fucked in any foreseeable future
Man oh man
Just imagine Libs in power and Africa goes full African

When the D.C. Circuit struck down Obama import regs instead of writing new regs and going through the Administration Rule making process, the Administration decided to simply proceed by Adminstrative Orders.

Zinkie cannot through Administrative order effictivley pass an Adminstrative Rule either banning or allowing importation. The case by case is Administrative order making, but using Admin orders as a pretense for rule making requires the procedural requirements of rule making to be followed or the the admin action through order making is does not have the force of law.

What folks need to do is apply in mass for export permits from Namibia, get denied, go hunting, and then challenge that the Department is really engaging in rule making. Of course, that is a big chunk of change for a maybe but it is the only way to get standing.

I do feel Zinkie is simply toeing the CEO cooperate line. He does not want to get Rexd. I do not know if I were him if I would resign. That would only let President Trump appoint someone worse.

Really bad situation.

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
When the D.C. Circuit struck down Obama import regs instead of writing new regs and going through the Administration Rule making process, the Administration decided to simply proceed by Adminstrative Orders.

Zinkie cannot through Administrative order effictivley pass an Adminstrative Rule either banning or allowing importation. The case by case is Administrative order making, but using Admin orders as a pretense for rule making requires the procedural requirements of rule making to be followed or the the admin action through order making is does not have the force of law.

What folks need to do is apply in mass for export permits from Namibia, get denied, go hunting, and then challenge that the Department is really engaging in rule making. Of course, that is a big chunk of change for a maybe but it is the only way to get standing.

I do feel Zinkie is simply toeing the CEO cooperate line. He does not want to get Rexd. I do not know if I were him if I would resign. That would only let President Trump appoint someone worse.

Why bother doing something useful when you can just revert to bureaucracy where nothing ever gets done!

We as hunters were better off with Obama than Trump.
That booth at the SCI convention with the Trump baseball hats was not surprisingly always empty.
I don't think he will get re-elected.It just remains to be seen how much damage he is going to do to hunters and shooters.

Then again the DOI just created that new committee on international hunting that includes the SCI president, John Jackson, and Ivan Carter. Just guessing and hoping this "case by case basis" is a temporary solution.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
We were better off with Obama than Trump.
That both at the SCI convention with the Trump baseball hats was not surprisingly always empty.
I don't think he will get re-elected.It just remains to be seen how much damage he is going to do to hunters and shooters.

Trudeau pro hunting?

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
We were better off with Obama than Trump.
That both at the SCI convention with the Trump baseball hats was not surprisingly always empty.
I don't think he will get re-elected.It just remains to be seen how much damage he is going to do to hunters and shooters.

Interntional hunters make up such a small part of the voting block it matters not if we wote or don't vote for him. Trump has his faults but no matter what he does (or does not do) he is hands down a better choice than Hildabitch.
Cal

So USF&W passes an import ban that is 100% WRONG, but has public support (because the majority have no clue what the facts are). Now, to change the rule and allow imports (do what is right for African wildlife) you'd have to weather a complete shit-storm of hate from a large majority of the country (and the world) most of whom should spend 15 minutes getting familiar with the issue, and would then know better. Tough spot to be in.

I think that Zinke, and Trump, are trying to figure out how to DO THE RIGHT THING when the right thing is (currently) POLITICALLY UNPALATABLE TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE.

Some people really need to take a step back: If Trump were not elected, the US Supreme Court would now be majority left wing activists. Gun owners would be sunk.

You can't MAGA overnight, especially after the last admin. spent 8 years purposely pouring sand in the gears. I still believe that ultimately the import issue gets set right. I, too, wish it had never been 'set wrong' to start with. And by 'set wrong' I mean 'broken on purpose.'

quote:

Originally posted by Baker458:
So USF&W passes an import ban that is 100% WRONG, but has public support (because the majority have no clue what the facts are). Now, to change the rule and allow imports (do what is right for African wildlife) you'd have to weather a complete shit-storm of hate from a large majority of the country (and the world) most of whom should spend 15 minutes getting familiar with the issue, and would then know better. Tough spot to be in.

I think that Zinke, and Trump, are trying to figure out how to DO THE RIGHT THING when the right thing is (currently) POLITICALLY UNPALATABLE TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE.

Some people really need to take a step back: If Trump were not elected, the US Supreme Court would now be majority left wing activists. Gun owners would be sunk.

You can't MAGA overnight, especially after the last admin. spent 8 years purposely pouring sand in the gears. I still believe that ultimately the import issue gets set right. I, too, wish it had never been 'set wrong' to start with. And by 'set wrong' I mean 'broken on purpose.'

How could Trump be figuring out how to do the right thing when he called African hunting a "horror show" and was for raising the legal age to buy guns.

I have reason to believe that something is going on. I am not going to say why I believe this. I am not sure if it is good or bad but my observations and instincts tell me that something is brewing. We have to remember that a certain entity jumping the gun got us into this position to begin with.

We will likely know before long.

quote:

We were better off with Obama than Trump.

Rich, coming from a fuggin' canadian, but probably true. If it was better for another country, then obama (the marxist) was all over it.

https://www.mercurynews.com/20...with-trophy-hunters/


Trump wildlife protection board stuffed with trophy hunters



By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS |
PUBLISHED: March 15, 2018 at 7:53 pm | UPDATED: March 16, 2018 at 5:01 am

By Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson and Jeff Horwitz | Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A new U.S. advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos is stacked with trophy hunters, including some members with direct ties to President Donald Trump and his family.

A review by The Associated Press of the backgrounds and social media posts of the 16 board members appointed by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke indicates they will agree with his position that the best way to protect critically threatened or endangered species is by encouraging wealthy Americans to shoot some of them.

One appointee co-owns a private New York hunting preserve with Trump’s adult sons. The oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., drew the ire of animal rights activists after a 2011 photo emerged of him holding a bloody knife and the severed tail of an elephant he killed in Zimbabwe.



The first meeting of the International Wildlife Conservation Council was scheduled for Friday at the Interior Department’s headquarters in Washington. Council members aren’t being paid a salary, though the department has budgeted $250,000 in taxpayer funds for travel expenses, staff time and other costs.

Trump has decried big-game hunting as a “horror show” in tweets. But under Zinke, a former Montana congressman who is an avid hunter, the Fish and Wildlife Service has quietly moved to reverse Obama-era restrictions on bringing trophies from African lions and elephants into the United States.

Asked about the changes during a congressional hearing Thursday, Zinke said no import permits for elephants have been issued since the ban was lifted earlier this month. The Fish and Wildlife Service said permits for lion trophies have been issued since October, when imports from Zimbabwe and Zambia were first allowed, though they could not immediately provide a number for how many.

A licensed two-week African hunting safari can cost more than $50,000 per person, not including airfare, according to advertised rates. Advocates say money helps support habitat conservation and anti-poaching efforts in some of the world’s poorest nations, and provides employment for local guides and porters.

In a statement last year, Zinke said, “The conservation and long-term health of big game crosses international boundaries. This council will provide important insight into the ways that American sportsmen and women benefit international conservation from boosting economies and creating hundreds of jobs to enhancing wildlife conservation.”


But environmentalists and animal welfare advocates say tourists taking photos generate more economic benefit, and hunters typically target the biggest and strongest animals, weakening already vulnerable populations.
There’s little indication dissenting perspectives will be represented on the Trump administration’s conservation council. Appointees include celebrity hunting guides, representatives from rifle and bow manufacturers, and wealthy sportspeople who boast of bagging the coveted “Big Five” — elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and Cape buffalo.

Most are high-profile members of Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association, groups that have sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to expand the list of countries from which trophy kills can be legally imported.

They include the Safari Club’s president, Paul Babaz, a Morgan Stanley investment adviser from Atlanta, and Erica Rhoad, a lobbyist and former GOP congressional staffer who is the NRA’s director of hunting policy.
Bill Brewster is a retired Oklahoma congressman and lobbyist who served on the boards of the Safari Club and the NRA. An NRA profile lauded Brewster and his wife’s five decades of participation and support for hunting, and his purchase of a lifetime NRA membership for his grandson when the boy was 3 days old.



Also on the board is Gary Kania, vice president of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, a group that lobbies Congress and state governments on issues affecting hunters and fishermen.

Zinke described the purpose of the council as representing the “strong partnership” between federal wildlife officials and those who hunt or profit from hunting. Council paperwork said the panel’s mission was “to increase public awareness domestically regarding conservation, wildlife law enforcement, and economic benefits that result from United states citizens traveling to foreign nations to engage in hunting.”

In its charter, the council’s listed duties include “recommending removal of barriers to the importation into the United States of legally hunted wildlife” and “ongoing review of import suspension/bans and providing recommendations that seek to resume the legal trade of those items, where appropriate.”

In a letter this week, a coalition of more than 20 environmental and animal welfare groups objected that the one-sided makeup of the council could violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires government boards to be balanced in terms of points of view and not improperly influenced by special interests. The groups said they nominated a qualified representative, but Zinke didn’t select him.

“If Trump really wants to stop the slaughter of elephants for trophies, he should shut down this biased, thrill-kill council,” said Tanya Sanerib, a spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity. “The administration can’t make wise decisions on trophy imports if it only listens to gun-makers and people who want to kill wildlife.”

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said the makeup of the council fully complies with the law.

“There are members on the council that represent all areas of conservation and varying opinions,” Swift said.

CONNECTIONS TO TRUMP

Among Zinke’s appointees is Steven Chancellor, a longtime Republican fundraiser and chairman of American Patriot Group, an Indiana-based conglomerate that includes a company that supplies Meals Ready to Eat to the U.S. military.

According to Safari Club member hunting records obtained in 2015 by the Humane Society, Chancellor has logged nearly 500 kills — including at least 18 lions, 13 leopards, six elephants and two rhinos.

In early 2016, records show Chancellor filed for a federal permit to bring home the skin, skull teeth and claws from another male lion he intended to kill that year in Zimbabwe, which at the time was subject to an import ban imposed by the Obama administration.

Later that same year, Chancellor hosted a private fundraiser for then-candidate Trump and Mike Pence at his Evansville, Indiana, mansion, where the large security gates leading up the driveway feature a pair of gilded lions.

Chancellor did not respond to a phone message seeking comment on Thursday.

In the fight to win approval for imports of lions from Zimbabwe, Chancellor was represented by Conservation Force, a non-profit law firm in Louisiana. It was founded by John Jackson III, a lawyer and past Safari Club president who also has been appointed to the advisory council by Zinke.

Chris Hudson, a lawyer and past president of the Dallas chapter of the Safari Club, also was appointed. He made headlines in 2014 when the club auctioned off a permit for $350,000 to kill an endangered black rhino in Namibia. Hudson later joined with Jackson in providing legal representation to the winning bidder, who sued Delta after the airline refused to fly the rhino’s carcass back to the United States.

‘HUNTING LIFESTYLE’

Appointees include professional hunters. Peter Horn is an ex-vice president of the Safari Club International Conservation Fund and a vice president for high-end gun-maker Beretta. He runs the company’s boutique in Manhattan, where well-heeled clients can drop as much as $150,000 for a hand-engraved, custom-made shotgun.

Horn wrote in his 2014 memoir that he co-owns a hunting property in upstate New York with Trump Jr. that has a 500-yard range “put together” by Eric Trump.

The AP reported last month that the Trump sons were behind a limited-liability company that purchased a 171-acre private hunting range in the bucolic Hudson Valley in 2013, complete with a wooden tower from which owners and their guests shoot at exploding targets.

Horn did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Trump Jr. also is friendly with another member of the advisory council — hunting guide and TV show personality Keith Mark. He helped organize Sportsmen for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and recently posted photos on his Twitter page of himself with Trump Jr. and Zinke, standing before an array of mounted big-horn sheep and a bear.

“I see the world from a hunting lifestyle,” Mark told the AP, adding that he has no preconceived agenda for his service on the conservation council. “It’s the most pure form of hands on conservation that there is. I will approach all decision-making with my background.”

Also named to the board is Cameron Hanes, a celebrity archer who advocates for trophy hunting. In a podcast last month, he said hunting allows animals such as elephants to “have value.”

But while supportive of African trophy hunting as an aid to conservation, he said he is more interested in North American wildlife management and sees the council as a way to represent hunters’ interests. He said he hopes to take Zinke out to the archery range.

“We’re trying to make that happen,” he said. “If you have somebody’s ear, you want to tell them what’s important to you.”

Hanes also said he knows Trump Jr. and has been speaking with him about hunting for “quite a while.”

EXTREME HUNTRESS

Also on the council is Olivia Opre, a TV personality and former Miss America contestant who received Safari Club’s top prize for female hunters, the Diana Award.

Opre, who co-produces a competition called Extreme Huntress, has killed about 90 different species on six continents, bringing home some 150 animal carcasses. Many are stuffed and mounted in her house, she told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2016.

“I’m tired of hearing the words ‘trophy hunter’,” she told the paper. “We’re helping to preserve wildlife; we hunt lions because we want to see populations of wildlife continue to grow.”

Opre, who did not respond to messages seeking comment, has previously recounted killing a hippo, buffalo, black rhino and lion, all in Africa.

She said in the NRA’s Women’s Leadership Form newsletter published last year that she and another Diana Award winner, Denise Welker, had “shed tears over her appreciation for life in all its forms.”

Welker also has been appointed to the conservation council. She shot and killed an African elephant from just five paces away, according to a blog post on the Safari CIub-affiliated site, Hunt Forever. Included was a photo of a smiling Welker posing next to the carcass of the big bull, a large bullet hole visible between its eyes.

She also has hunted animals across the U.S., in Mexico, New Zealand and Cameroon, posting photos of herself with a dead leopard, eland and Greenland musk ox, according to a post she wrote on Hunt Forever three years ago.
On the website scout.com, Gayne Young wrote that he hunted elephants with Denise, her husband, Brian, and hunter and tracker Ivan Carter in Botswana in 2013.


Carter — a British citizen who runs a non-profit anti-poaching initiative alongside his guide business — also was appointed to the conservation council. He is a Rhodesian-born professional hunting guide who resides in the Bahamas. On social media postings, he has said banning elephant imports does not reduce how many elephants are hunted, and wrote an article after the infamous shooting of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe declaring that anti-hunting forces were on the march.
“This event and the subsequent events have been the ‘Twin Towers’ of the hunting world — our 9-11,” he wrote in a 2016 article, deploring airlines’ move to stop accepting hunting trophies as air cargo. He proposed fighting back in a war of public opinion, with hunters as infantrymen, organizations like Safari Club International as generals and the pro-hunting media as “a machine gun that can spew thousands of bullets into the opposition’s fighting force.”

In an interview with AP on Thursday, he described himself as a conservationist first and a hunter second. He said he did not have a problem with the council’s membership skewing toward trophy hunters.

“They are what makes the wheel turn in the form of bringing big dollars” to conservation, he said. Without trophy-hunting revenue, the governments of African nations will turn over conservation land to private interests for development, he said.

“The business model doesn’t work with the closure of lion and elephant imports,” he said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service declined to provide information on Thursday on whether any appointees to the advisory committee had applied for or received import permits for animal trophies over the last year. Agency spokesman Gavin Shire suggested filing a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of the permits, a process that can take years.

ANIMAL EXPERTS

One of two non-hunters named to the board is Terry Maple, a former director of the Atlanta zoo. Legally importing rare live animals also requires government permits issued by Fish and Wildlife. Maple helped write “A Contract with the Earth,” a book by Newt Gingrich making the politically conservative case for environmentalism.

The other is Jenifer Chatfield, a zoo and wildlife veterinarian professor who has family ties to the exotic animal trade.

The book “Animal Underworld: Inside America’s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species” accused her father, John Chatfield, of diverting zoo animals to the private market, where they would become pets or stock private hunting ranches.

In one 1997 instance — reported by the AP — the elder Chatfield ended up in possession of endangered lemurs and pronghorn antelopes that were to have gone to a zoo in Indiana. Simultaneously, Chatfield listed lemurs and pronghorn antelope for sale in a publication called “Animal Finders.”

An investigation of the zoo director’s activities resulted in his expulsion from the American Zoological Association. Chatfield denied any wrongdoing at the time. He did not respond to a request for comment from the AP on Thursday.

The Chatfield family since has moved to Dade City, Florida, where they operate a facility housing nearly 200 exotic animals that state business records show Jenifer partly owns. In 2013, Florida Fish and Wildlife officials cited the farm for improperly storing kangaroos after one escaped, then died after being tranquilized and shocked by sheriff’s deputies. According to the state’s report, Chatfield initially denied that the kangaroo was his — but accepted responsibility after the fish and wildlife inspector proposed DNA testing. The inspector noted that Chatfield was unable to say how many kangaroos he currently had.

Though Jenifer Chatfield is a part owner of the exotic animal facility and was present at the time of the kangaroo escape, state wildlife officials did not cite her for a violation along with her father.
She did not return messages seeking comment.

And in the meantime:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Big-game hunters tapped by the Trump administration to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants and lions as trophies defended the practice Friday, arguing that threatened and endangered species would go extinct without the anti-poaching programs funded in part by the fees wealthy Americans pay to shoot some of them.

All looks positive and there are some familiar names appearing on the board.

quote:

Originally posted by slim buttes:
What is crystal clear is, Trumps word is worthless.

SAD!

Holy Crap. Why didn't anyone see that coming?

I’d say, give them time
It beats me why some of you are just so anti Trump, while you have not done squat yourselves or respectively your fine countries
Why some of your fine “ world “ leaders didn’t help TRump publicly on this issue?

First, Trump is lucky he was the second worst candidate in 2016. It's a shame out of all the people in the USA we ended up with those two.

He has proven to undercut anyone who works with him, so I imagine many "fine world leaders" and any other self respecting person are hoping they don't have to make contact with Trump.

It is too bad Trump can't speak in complete sentences and explain the facts about the benefits of sport hunting, sign some piece of paper that lifts the ban, and be tough enough to take some inevitable criticism like every other President has had to. But in the end Trump probably doesn't care anyway, he has difficulty stringing words together in a coherent way, and for all his tough talk he has shown little back bone.

Also I don't think Zinke will be around in 6 months.

quote:

Originally posted by boarkiller:
I’d say, give them time
It beats me why some of you are just so anti Trump, while you have not done squat yourselves or respectively your fine countries
Why some of your fine “ world “ leaders didn’t help TRump publicly on this issue?

If world leaders having a low opinion of Trump comes as a surprise to you, the following from the former director of your own CIA might help clarify matters -

John O. Brennan
‏
Verified account

@JohnBrennan
Follow Follow @JohnBrennan
More John O. Brennan Retweeted Donald J. Trump
When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.

Instead of blowing worthless smoke here.
Why don't you guys bury Trump and Zinke with letters stating why you feel this way.
Enough, and they might see the light before it's too late to save the game down there.

Sounds like DJ Jr. knows his shit. I'd bet sooner than later he'll get Daddy's attention.

George

One of the problems with electing deeply flawed individuals is that they are soon too busy scrabbling around trying to save their own asses to do anything else. Imagine a list of Trump's priorities and then imagine where African conservation ranks on that list.