http://annamiticus.com/2016/05...g-wildlife-policies/


Trophy-Hunting Trump Jr. Sets Sights on ‘Re-Shaping’ Wildlife Policies

Date: 14 May 2016 By: Rhishja Cota-Larson


In the event Donald Trump is elected to the American Presidency, his son Donald Jr. is eyeing an influential position with the Interior. Junior claims the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is “anti-hunting” and says that a Trump administration would put a hunter in charge of the agency.

Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric gained internet fame in 2015 when photos from a 2012 elephant hunt surfaced, showing Donald Jr. holding the elephant’s severed tail. Additional photos of the Trump brothers’ exploits in Africa have since made the social media circuit. One depicts the younger Trump holding up a dead leopard, and another particularly disturbing image shows the great white hunters posing next to a crocodile hanging from a tree.

“There seems to be a revolving door between the anti-hunting groups and leadership of the USFWS," laments Donald Trump Jr.


Trump Jr. has been quoted many times attempting to defend trophy hunting with the usual rhetoric about how the trophy hunting fees are plowed right back into wildlife conservation or how the fees are helping local communities. “Looking globally, the economic help to the people in Africa for food, water wells, schools, and hospitals is tremendous through hunters’ dollars,” he said in a January 2016 interview with Petersen’s Hunting.

“American hunters are doing great things for people and wildlife wherever we go.”

The truth is that there is very little, if any, actual proof that so-called “hunters’ dollars” ever arrive at the intended destination. In fact, a 2013 study by the Economists at Large think tank revealed that trophy hunting’s contributions to local communities are “minimal”. (Download the study The $200 million question: How much does trophy hunting really contribute to African communities?.)

“We see that across Africa local communities receive minimal benefit from trophy hunting, particularly when we consider the vast areas of land that hunting concessions occupy.”

Speaking from her experience in Zimbabwe, wildlife trade consultant and CITES expert Susie Watts confirmed that trophy hunt dollars do not reach local communities. She recalled speaking with a village headman in Zimbabwe who told her that all his family received from the trophy hunting of elephants – for the entire year – was three dollars.

“Meanwhile, there were people at the local Councilor level driving around in Mercedes.”

In his Peterson’s Hunting interview, Trump Jr. was (unsurprisingly) asked about “overreaching regulations, such as the banning of importation of polar bears, lions, and elephants”, to which he replied, “There seems to be a revolving door between the anti-hunting groups and leadership of the USFWS.”

He added that “proven conservationists will be in the leadership of the USFWS” in a Trump administration, and that he would like to see “bad laws like the Equal Access to Justice Act” changed.

(The Equal Access to Justice Act is used to vindicate a variety of federal rights, including access to Veterans Affairs and Social Security disability benefits, as well as to secure statutory environmental protections: it promotes public involvement in laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Emphasis added.)

“The biggest family joke that we all had over the holidays was that the only job in government that I would actually want would be in the Department of the Interior.”

But it’s no joke – E&E reports that Trump Jr. is wooing hunters, and the campaign has pledged to “aggressively fight lawsuits by anti-hunting groups, make wildlife habitat more productive, and control predators like wolves that prey on game species like elk”.

Regarding Trump Jr.’s claim that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is “anti-hunting”, one has to wonder – would an “anti-hunting” USFWS have allowed infamous trophy hunter Corey Knowlton to import the severed head of a critically endangered black rhinoceros? Go ahead, you can learn more about our “anti-hunting” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at “Your Guide to Hunting on National Wildlife Refuges” located here.

Perhaps the crux of Trump Jr.’s complaints about USFWS lies in the current moratorium on the import of sport-hunted elephant trophies from Tanzania and Zimbabwe. This is in place not because the USFWS is “anti-hunting” but because “given the situation in Tanzania in 2014 and 2015, and given the information available to the Service regarding elephants in Zimbabwe, the agency is not assured that the benefits of sport hunting will be realized in those countries”. Read the Questions and Answers document for detailed information on the elephant trophy decisions.

Or maybe the Trumps’ notorious coziness with the National Rifle Association has pitted Junior against elephants in general. In 2014, the NRA reacted to the U.S. National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking by urging its members to “oppose the ban on commercial sale and trade of legally owned firearms with ivory components”. A year later, the powerful gun-toting fraternity rallied around H.R. 697, a bill that would “prevent the Obama Administration from banning the U.S. sale and trade of legally owned ivory, as well as ensure that sport-hunted elephant trophies can be imported from countries with sustainable elephant populations”.

And regarding endangered species here in the United States, it’s no surprise that Trump Jr. identifies with that peculiar American subculture that hates wolves, claiming that “USFWS biologists made a terrible error, perhaps deliberate, on wolf impacts to our herds of game.”

“We need to reduce wolves and rebuild those herds.”

Yikes. Would there be any hope at all for endangered species, under a Trump administration?

Geez, hard to decide who Ms. Cota-Larson has more disdain for... Trump and his ilk or hunters! Sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to assure that the bunny huggers, poor puppies crowd votes Democratic. Of course, that's redundant!

Trump 2016, what else can you say?

Liberal hack attack. I don't think Donald is the second coming by a long shot, but I hope he gives the Hildabeest a shelacking that makes American history.

You don't hear a lot about how great she is, just a lot of self-righteous indignation about how terrible he is.

Too bad the good for nothing Republican snob elite doesn't support Trump.That asshole Bush reminds me of a lot of AR characters we have here.

I tend to agree with him!!!

I know a lot of us are going to hold our noses...but I hope we get out and vote for him.

Imagine how much stronger the shitstorm will get with the alternative....

Junior is so right
It's up o us who to vote for
As simple as that
After this years primaries, I do hate Romney
What a cultist, elitist asshole MF

I think you all know where Hillary and her snotty-nosed daughter stand with regards to hunting and the right to bear arms.

Don't y'all start bitching later on when you lose your rights.

I'm voting ABC (Anybody but Clinton)!

Trump 2016 !

We all know that the actual amount of hunters' dollars that actually reaches the local communities is far in excess of what the "economists" report. Gifts, gratuities, employment, meat, etc., are not considered in those "studies." Further, Zim Parks is supposed to be self-funded, so whatever monies they collect that are actually spent on wildlife, are, in fact, spent on the citizenry. As someone else has said, an anti-hunting hack job from a liberal whack job.

Well said Guys!!! Donald Trump along with his sons Don And Eric are the last hope for African Wildlife!!!

Trump 2016

ABC? Anybody But Cee U Next Tuesday!

I am not sure The Donald could appoint any of his children to a civil service job. Since Bobby Kennedy was AG they passed several nepotism laws.

Besides, if he truly believes that , why wouldn't he work in ANY Republican administration?

Finally Trump comes along and makes the US an exciting place again.The media is full of Trump news and such and he is the talk of the world.Then all the good for nothings all over are Jealous of him wondering why no one pays any attention to them.They try to take whatever he says and quote it out of context-something I never saw Trump do to anyone.All the rude attacks and insults from the so called reporters.As this goes along it becomes ever so clear that Trump has more class than all of them.

Trump has my vote.Go Don Jr!!!!!

I think that the current Republicans want Clinton to win because it is back to business as usual. Democrats fighting Republicans. Everyone in DC is scared of Trump because with him come uncertain job security. The DC area is not the wealthiest part of our country and most all of these people work for the federal government.

Maybe this November's election is where the good, decent citizens of the USA finally stand up to the PC, "anything goes" (as long as it is something THEY approve of) crowd of the so-called "progressives".

Let's make this a "we are sick and tired of this socialist, liberal crap and ain't gonna take it anymore".

Vote Trump in 2016! With liberals (including illegals and felons) voting multiple times for bruja Hillary, we have to take a stand.

BH63

quote:

Originally posted by Capt. Purvis:
The DC area is not the wealthiest part of our country and most all of these people work for the federal government.

"Six of America’s 10 wealthiest counties lie within a stone’s throw of the Beltway. Plenty of lucrative jobs are available in tech contracting and other professional services, while other big sources of employment are local school systems and major federal agencies like the Department of Defense."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/to...s-2014/#2fa485a25120

I am not a fan of Trump and think he will be terrible for the global economy.

However on hunting, the antis have already started a Facebook campaign with pictures of the son's trophy (leopard) and positing negative stuff.

Expect more - a lot more