https://www.independent.co.uk/...ntagon-b1759358.html



Trump pentagon nominee hunted and killed elephants in Zimbabwe

He paid $75,000 to hunt the animals, which he said was the “fulfillment of a life-long dream”

Josh Marcus
San Francisco
18 hours ago

Scott O’Grady, a famous former Air Force officer recently nominated for a top Defense Department role in the Trump administration, hunted and killed two elephants in Zimbabwe in 2014 and lobbied Congress to lift trophy hunting restrictions.

The revelations were first reported by independent journalist Yashar Ali but come from congressional testimony by Mr O’Grady.

O’Grady, who became a national sensation after surviving behind enemy lines in Bosnia when his jet was shot down during the NATO peace-keeping mission, hunted the elephants on a 2014 safari. He said it was the “fulfillment of a life-long dream,” for which he paid $75,000, more than his annual income at the time.

After returning from Zimbabwe that spring, Mr O’Grady, who was nominated Tuesday to be assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, testified before a Congressional subcommittee on wildlife affairs in support of lifting the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) April 2014 suspension on importing elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania.


The agency said elephants were “under siege” in both countries, saying poor “management practices, a lack of effective law enforcement and weak governance have resulted in uncontrolled poaching and catastrophic population declines of African elephants."

Mr O’Grady argued in his testimony that trophy hunting helps fund conservation, and that he was accompanied by Zimbabwean government wildlife officials who monitored the hunt.

“I passionately believe that we all have a unique responsibility to conserve wild places and wild species,” he told the committee , adding “hunters are conservationists.”


Mr O’Grady did not respond to requests for comment.

At the time, Robert Mugabe was still in power in Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe, who ran the country as a kleptocracy for nearly four decades, reportedly once ate baby elephant during a $1 million birthday celebration in 2015, and sold over 90 elephants to China and Dubai to help fund wildlife conservation.



He also criticized “white-owned” and American safaris for their impact.

“They can’t say ‘allow our people to visit, allow our people to have safaris,’ to kill our lions and take safari trophies to America,” Mr Mugabe said in 2015.

Prior to his testimony, Mr O’Grady reportedly prepared for “several weeks,” with Safari Club International, a hunting and conservation organization, who did not respond to a request for comment. He’d also previously met with FWS leadership to discuss the trophy ban in May.


The 12-year Air Force veteran is a co-chair of the Veterans for Trump group, and has previously retweeted a variety of right-wing conspiracy theories online, which included supporting Q-anon followers, as well as retweeting those labeling Dr. Anthony Fauci a member of the “deep state” and calling Covid a plot to install Marxism, according to Media Matters For America, a liberal watchdog group.

The president has reshuffled the Pentagon to elevate loyalists following his election defeat, which he refuses to concede, and the ouster of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who had opposed the president’s desire to use active-duty troops against civil rights protests this summer.

https://yashar.substack.com/p/...n-nominee-hunted-and



Trump Pentagon Nominee Hunted and Killed Two Elephants in Zimbabwe

Capt. Scott O’Grady, who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to become the next assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, killed two elephants during a 2014 hunting trip in Zimbabwe, according to documents O’Grady filed as part of his testimony before a House committee six years ago.

O’Grady, co-chair of the group Veterans for Trump, gained international attention in 1995 when his F-16 was shot down by a Bosnian Serb missile. The Air Force officer managed to survive and evade capture in hostile territory for six days before being rescued. His nomination to the Pentagon post was announced Tuesday.


In 2014, O’Grady testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service temporarily suspended the importation of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania. The agency, then under the Obama administration, determined that “questionable management practices, a lack of effective law enforcement and weak governance have resulted in uncontrolled poaching and catastrophic population declines of African elephants in Tanzania. In Zimbabwe, available data, though limited, indicate a significant decline in the elephant population,” according to a statement the agency released.

O’Grady argued against the suspension, noting that he had just returned from a three-week safari in Zimbabwe and could attest that “their elephant population is not only robust, but is exceeding the land’s carrying capacity.”

As part of his testimony, O’Grady submitted a letter from a Zimbabwe-based safari hunting company confirming his elephant-hunting record. The letter noted that O’Grady killed his first elephant on March 11, 2014, and his second on March 23, 2014.


The letter O’Grady submitted as part of his testimony to a House committee in 2014. The letter confirmed that he killed two elephants in 2014 as part of a hunting trip to Zimbabwe.

In his prepared statement for the committee, O’Grady described the elephant hunting trip as “an amazing experience.”

The crux of O’Grady’s testimony, a common argument made by trophy hunters, is that the fees trophy hunters pay for elephant-hunting licenses help communities in many different ways—from funding local services to helping combat poachers and wildlife traffickers.

While it’s true that some of the licensing fees for elephant hunting (and the hunting of other big game like lions and giraffes) can help local communities and conservation efforts, figuring out where this money ends up is often a difficult task. Corruption and kleptocracy often lead to a large amount of these funds lining the pockets of politicians and other local leaders.

Ecotourism—where tourists spend money to stay at hotels and pay fees to see the flora and fauna in sub-Saharan African countries—is much more helpful for conservation in the long run and much more sustainable, plus it helps the local economy.

Today, elephant hunters aren’t the reason African elephants are vulnerable. That blame lies with poaching, habitat destruction and human-wildlife conflict. Most African nations limit elephant hunting—Kenya, for example, has had an outright ban since 1977—and with licenses costing tens of thousands of dollars, there aren’t many people who can afford to do it. Additionally, most licenses only allow hunters to kill older males, not females who are critical for the survival of their herds.

But experts say allowing the hunting of elephants is a slippery slope, which leads to an increase in poaching. Additionally, the legal import of elephant trophies is often used as cover for traffickers to slip in illegal shipments of ivory.

And not all governments behave responsibly. When governments are in need of money, one of the easiest ways to raise funds is to increase the number of available elephant hunting licenses.

At the time of O’Grady’s elephant hunt, Robert Mugabe, a dictator who masqueraded as a Democratically elected president, was Zimbabwe’s leader. Mugabe, along with his wife, Grace, led a kleptocracy that ravaged the country’s economy, leading to a majority of Zimbabweans unemployed by the time he died in 2019. (Mugabe was forced to resign in November 2017.)

Mugabe and his wife treated Zimbabwe’s wild elephants like their own personal piggy bank—selling wild baby elephants to countries like China when they needed cash. Grace Mugabe was even credibly accused of using her diplomatic powers to traffic ivory.

That qualifies him then!

He hunted elephants, so what. The press smearing another Trump appointee.

Dave

Cannon-fodder for the Democrats; they are going to be all over him like flies on a fresh turd!

And, Facebook is still regurgitating the Charlton/Jines ele pic and story. It was recently posted forward by a woman that I knew from high school, and liked by another woman that I also am friends with on Facebook. I hid/ignored the post.

My son & I had a dang awesome ele hunt in Zim the year previous to that. IIRC, the cites tag quota for african ele that year was something like 215 total. Not a threat in any way, esp with the hunters contributing meaningful money to anti poaching efforts. Poaching takes easily 100x greater ele numbers than the sport hunter, but the press has a different agenda.

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
And, Facebook is still regurgitating the Charlton/Jines ele pic and story. It was recently posted forward by a woman that I knew from high school, and liked by another woman that I also am friends with on Facebook. I hid/ignored the post.

I was On the way to the NFD in Kenya, with barely any cell signal and my wife sent me a message that he aunt sent her - it was about Buzz and Mike. She asked me if I knew what it was about (the caption was he was killing baby elephants). I said yes, I’ll tell you when I get home.

That’s an example of the difference between an online chat site like this and actual social media.

Social media is the devil...

quote:

Social media is the devil...

Yep.

The WORLD doesn't know ELEPHANTS ARE NOT ENDANGERED!! They believe the environmentalists and have not faced them in the bush...as locals do...and are killed by them!!
Hunters need to expose them by telling the "Zim CAMPFIRE Story"... about hunting and anti poaching!!... if it's not too late to turn the tide??

CheerZ,

Typical shoddy reporting. They need to include:

Type of rifle (hopefully a double)
Ammo used
Pounds per side
Area
PH

Seriously, I heard this guy speak at an SCI event in DC several years ago, he was very well spoken and seemed to be extremely intelligent.

So, this is worse than “hunting” graft in China and bribes in the Ukraine?

The press is a bad joke these days.

Congratulations to Scott for his elephant hunts..Hope he does as well in the government-political mess.

This is written as if they had caught this guy with child pornography not doing something completely within the law.

Mark

No reference to the million or so elephant that has been poached throughout Africa and whose tusks now reside in the bowls of our Asian population?

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
No reference to the million or so elephant that has been poached throughout Africa and whose tusks now reside in the bowls of our Asian population?

Of course not.

The way these stories read it’s like guys who have a lot of money go spend a lot of money to hunt elephants so they can sneak in ivory so they can sell it and not make as much money back.

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
And, Facebook is still regurgitating the Charlton/Jines ele pic and story. It was recently posted forward by a woman that I knew from high school, and liked by another woman that I also am friends with on Facebook. I hid/ignored the post.

I permanently deleted my FB page about 6 months ago. I recommend all sportsman do the same.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
That qualifies him then!

Exactly right. Thanks, Saeed.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Ahrenberg:

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
And, Facebook is still regurgitating the Charlton/Jines ele pic and story. It was recently posted forward by a woman that I knew from high school, and liked by another woman that I also am friends with on Facebook. I hid/ignored the post.

I permanently deleted my FB page about 6 months ago. I recommend all sportsman do the same.

I would, but I have never had and will never have a Facebook account.

They are nothing but propagandists and censors.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Ahrenberg:

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
And, Facebook is still regurgitating the Charlton/Jines ele pic and story. It was recently posted forward by a woman that I knew from high school, and liked by another woman that I also am friends with on Facebook. I hid/ignored the post.

I permanently deleted my FB page about 6 months ago. I recommend all sportsman do the same.

I would, but I have never had and will never have a Facebook account.

They are nothing but propagandists and censors.

Me too!

I'm certain many of our never trump types will be happy when Biden and cameltoe start appointing peta types to replace Trump appointments.

I’m ashamed to say that I ignored it too. Much as I wanted to respond, I just didn’t have time to devote to formulating an informed response targeting an audience with no comprehension of the issues at all. So while I know about CAMPFIRE and sustainable resource use conservation models, explaining them to an audience that doesn’t have any clue that hunting in Africa is not illegal (!) takes time. These are people that honestly think that the whole of Africa is a national park like they see on wildlife documentaries...

If it doesn’t exist already, what we need is for organisations such as DSC or Conservation Force to prepare a ‘pitch book’ of ready made responses for such situations - much like companies have ‘pitch books’ to help executives inform potential clients about issues and a company‘s wider capabilities and expertise in fields outside that executive’s immediate job role. It needs to be tailored to different social media platforms too.

BANG ON, AND THIS SHOULD HAVE STARTED 20 YEARS AGO!!
IT'S NOT TO LATE TO TRY...BUT WE HAVE LOST ALOT OF TRACTION!!....ATTITUDES HAVE CHANGED DRAMATICALLY.
WELL, BOTH SCI AND DSC MUST GET ROLLING ON THIS NOW....

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
And, Facebook is still regurgitating the Charlton/Jines ele pic and story. It was recently posted forward by a woman that I knew from high school, and liked by another woman that I also am friends with on Facebook. I hid/ignored the post.

I was On the way to the NFD in Kenya, with barely any cell signal and my wife sent me a message that he aunt sent her - it was about Buzz and Mike. She asked me if I knew what it was about (the caption was he was killing baby elephants). I said yes, I’ll tell you when I get home.

That’s an example of the difference between an online chat site like this and actual social media.

Social media is the devil...

Last month, an acquaintance of mine posted a photo of Mike's elephant on his FB page along with some bullshit verbiage about an American hunter killing a baby elephant.

When I asked him why he posted the 'baby elephant' photo knowing that there is an ongoing effort to end trophy hunting, he replied that he couldn't give a shit less since he will never hunt an elephant.

Oh, did I mention that my acquaintance is a 75 year old country boy and life-long Republican from Mississippi who enjoys both waterfowl and deer hunting?

From the Animal Rights Activists' perspective, the photo is a gift that just keeps on giving.

Please carry on gentlemen.