Can forest elephant from Cameroon be imported into the US?

At SCI I tried to answer this very question. Outfitters told me you cannot import them to the US. Canada Mexico europe no problem. I talked to the Brain Trust at USFW and they said yes you can. You have to apply for an import permit from them and if they grant it you can import the trophy. I was very happy but the glazed look I got from USFW made me ask one more qestion. Does USFW grant such permits? That they didn't know. Subsequent research indicates they don't, so at this time you cannot legally import Forest elephant trophies to the USA.

Thanks SG Olds. A Bongo / Elephant hunt would have been a great adventure.

Scott,

The folks I have talked to think the forest elephant hunt may be the the top of the heap as far as DG hunts go. You have to get incredibly close before shooting. Unfortunately a US citizen has to be satisfied with pics only at this time. Of course pics are less expensive than taxidermy and the trophy fee is only about $6500.

Mark

Stupid quetion Mark, but aside from the obvious ethical issue, and assuming the visual differences, how can the US Customs tell the difference in tusks? jorge

quote:

Originally posted by jorge:
Stupid quetion Mark, but aside from the obvious ethical issue, and assuming the visual differences, how can the US Customs tell the difference in tusks? jorge

I believe the problem is that you won't have a CITES permit to being them in, unless you get one issued fraudulently from somewhere from which ivory be imported.

I have also read about "pink" ivory being a hallmark of forest elephants, but have no idea how true or distinctive it is.

jorge,

As Charles said the problem is that you cannot get an import permit from USF&G.

Mark

Thanks, guys. I always just wondered if CITES permits provided enough safeguards to prevent "bait n' switch' of ivory. That wold be a neat hnt though. jorge

I hunted with Ngong Safaris in Cameroon in 2004 for Roan. See posting in the hunting pages. The guy that owns Ngong is named Borge Lagedford and he hunts the rain forest for Bongo as well as the savanna for Lord Derby and Roan.

I talked to him about elephant and he said they were available as an add on for $3000 to either hunt, but the US will not issue an import permit even though Cameroon is a signer of CITES. Has something to do with some paperwork not being in order.

He has American clients that take forest and savanna elephant both. The savanna elephants don't have much for tusk weight with 30 lbs being about average in his area. But the forest elephants are another story. He showed me some recent photos of tusk over 80 lbs from some of the bulls his clients have taken while bongo hunting. When an American takes an elephant he has the tusks and all the paperwork sent to his home in Denmark and they are waiting for the time when the US finally decides to issue permits and he will ship the trophies to the clients then. Kind of the same thing the Canadian outfitters did with Polar Bears for years.

So, if you want to take a big forest elephant and a bongo, Borge runs almost 100 percent on Bongo, Ngong Safaris is a pretty good outfit to check out. A fellow named Charlie Goldenberg of Premier Safaris is his booking agent in the states.

Cheers

Mac

I believe I have one of the last elephant export permits from Cameroun. It was issued by US F&W in 2005 (or so). Since then they do not feel Cameroun has fulfilled its part of the management plan to conserve the species and so no import permits have been issued. Cameroun will only issue export permits for ivory on being shown an import permit that is valid. Cameroun used to get 80 permits form CITES a year. I believe may foreign contries still allow the import of the Cameroun ivory.
The forest hunt is very exciting, especially if you do it on a chase libre basis, which is how I hunted them. The ivory is also a different ivory form the savannah elephants, called a “rose†or yellow ivory. More dense, and less white.
Poaching is now a very serious issue with all the forest areas, and there are few left in the areas open to the chasse libre hunters.
Camshaft