As we were moving into DSC today we sat and chatted with many old friends. The talk always came around to: "Do you think leopard will be banned too?"

Many told me that with the loss of ivory import and lion trophy import ability to the US that they were hurting and if leopard went...they were hanging it up.

Will Zinke save Africa?

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
As we were moving into DSC today we sat and chatted with many old friends. The talk always came around to: "Do you think leopard will be banned too?"

Many told me that with the loss of ivory import and lion trophy import ability to the US that they were hurting and if leopard went...they were hanging it up.

Will Zinke save Africa?

Proper scientific process to determine the cost and benefits of managed hunting will save hunting - everything else is a political band aid. Property rights will provide the right framework for wild life conservation and use thru hunting.

Mike

I have a leopard hunt booked for August....so let's hope so!

Ps...Joule is nice, thanks for the recommendation.

Beretta682E
Spot on. Even though the facts are also ingored.

The Bubye Valley Conservancy has the science...reams of data (suspect the Save may as well). Yet they will be hurt the most...as they were with the lion ban. Operators like TGTS, Robin Hurt Safari's etc also have good data on leopard yet they will be punished as well.

Stopping leopard hunting equals more poison which equals less leopard.

That science is hard and fast.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
The Bubye Valley Conservancy has the science...reams of data (suspect the Save may as well). Yet they will be hurt the most...as they were with the lion ban. Operators like TGTS, Robin Hurt Safari's etc also have good data on leopard yet they will be punished as well.

Stopping leopard hunting equals more poison which equals less leopard.

That science is hard and fast.

The problem is parks in Zim - all the private property real science data is dominated by a corrupt national wildlife management agency.

The anti hunters have learned that focus data on the national level where there is none or count it themselves as Paul Allen did with the elephant survey.

Mike

Agreed. But...

...this is exactly why the USF&WS needs a good house cleaning...they have become an arm of the anti-hunters...and...like anti-hunting orgs...they are willing to excise the nose to spite the face.

IE: Stopping leopard trophy import into the USA...ultimately produces decreased leopard populations.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
Agreed. But...

...this is exactly why the USF&WS needs a good house cleaning...they have become an arm of the anti-hunters...and...like anti-hunting orgs...they are willing to excise the nose to spite the face.

IE: Stopping leopard trophy import into the USA...ultimately produces decreased leopard populations.

This is the most accurate statement of all.

Jeff

Proof once again that hunting is facing an organized attack. One more step toward a total ban.

Dave

Sadly they know where our Achilles Heel is. I think anyone who has been paying attention has known what the end goal is for the anti's for decades.

Social media is being used as a very effective weapon and we get bludgeoned at every turn with it. Social engineering for the last 30 or 40 years has created the average societal mindset that is ripe for the picking. Politics and emotion trump hard science.

The only thing that will save it at this point from the steep downhill slide, is if you boys and girls in the US can get your fearless leaders to give the USFWS a complete overhaul. A similar occurrence needs to happen in the EU.

If this is not achieved in the very near future it will be almost impossible to recover, for both hunters and wildlife everywhere, but starting with Africa.

While Africa is the focus, what is happening is already affecting us elsewhere. I had a bear hunter from Hungary this past season and he and the taxidermist here in Canada are having a hell of a time getting his bear shipped to Hungary. Several airlines have already turned down the shipment because it is a "hunting trophy". Getting the right airline that will accept the package and a shipping agent at both ends that knows what they are doing is proving to be rather difficult.......... and that is just a hint of what is to come for all of us. Not just Africa.

Respectfully, I submit that Mr. Beretta is spot on.

Zinke could make a great start with the management policies in our NWR system. He has been a good voice for our state(Montana)and has a good grasp of what has happened to hunting opportunities on the NWR system from the Carter administration onward. USFW is a swamp to be drained!

IMO we need to be very pro-active with Mr. Zinke as to our very legitimate concerns about USFWS.

quote:

Originally posted by Tim Vining:
IMO we need to be very pro-active with Mr. Zinke as to our very legitimate concerns about USFWS.

Exactly! We cannot presume anymore. We have to stay on top of it and hold feet to fire.

https://blog.humanesociety.org...unting-leopards.html


U.S. should change its spots on trophy hunting of leopards

November 29, 2017



While we eagerly await President Trump’s follow-up on his decision to suspend imports of elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia, we hope he takes a broad look at the trophy hunting of other threatened and endangered species and stops all imports of the animals for their heads, tusks, and other body parts. More specifically, we hope he adds leopards to the do-not-import list.

Leopards have not attracted nearly as much attention and concern as other imperiled big cats such as cheetahs and lions. But they have taken a terrible set of hits across their range. Leopard numbers in sub-Saharan Africa have plummeted by more than 30 percent in the last 22 years, in large part due to a combination of unsustainable trophy hunting, unyielding habitat loss and degradation, retaliatory killings for livestock kills, and trade in their skins for religious ceremonies.

On July 25, 2016, The HSUS, HSI, and coalition partners filed a legal petition recommending that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service list all leopards in Africa as endangered and prohibit imports of leopard trophies. The import of live leopards and other leopard parts (such as pelts for the fur trade) are required to meet rigid requirements, and yet the same is not required for trophies, meaning American hunters get something of a free pass to do as they wish with leopards.

Experts agree that leopard trophy hunting is unsustainable. Indeed, according to records produced by the USFWS, Americans imported the equivalent of at least 5,575 leopards between 2005-2014 – nearly half of the global trade in leopard trophies during that period. This is nearly 1.5 leopards imported every day for a decade into the United States, and the trend appears to be increasing. Killing males in their prime destabilizes leopard social structures, leading to increased female mortality and reduced survival for the cubs who may be killed by new males filling the territorial void.

Since 1975, leopards have had meaningful protections (Appendix I listing) under the global treaty that regulates trade in wildlife parts. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) does not, however, prohibit trade in trophies, and only requires stricter permitting. Because of that gap in international law, it’s especially important that major nations such as the United States prohibit imports of leopard trophies, as a way to discourage trophy hunters from killing the big cats in their native lands.

The situation is so dire in South Africa – one of the major exporters of leopard trophies – that it prohibited export of leopard trophies for 2016 and 2017. And in response to dramatic declines in leopard numbers and growing threats, this species was given stronger protections in October by the Convention on Migratory Species, also an important international treaty organization.

The threat to leopards is real and escalating, especially so if the United States steps up protections for lions and elephants. Trophy hunters will turn their focus to leopards even more. Safari Club International, the largest trophy hunting club in the United States, is offering up five leopard trophy hunts on the auction site for its upcoming convention and fundraising event at the Las Vegas Convention Center in early February. The highest bidders, who will likely spend tens of thousands of dollars, will have the chance to kill these threatened animals in Namibia, Tanzania, and the Central African Republic. The African leopard is one of the Africa Big Five, the holy grail of trophy hunting, consisting also of the African elephant, the African lion, white or black rhinoceros, and Cape buffalo.

We celebrate the president’s declaration that the trophy hunting of elephants and other species is “a horror show,” and we eagerly await a final decision. Again, while he’s at it, we hope President Trump urges his Fish and Wildlife Service to do all it can to discourage Americans from killing threatened and endangered species for their heads. When it comes to leopards, he can urge the agency to heed the best available science, take the precautionary approach, and act quickly to prohibit the import of African leopard trophies. The species’ survival depends on it, and our humanity depends on it as well.

Nothing is going to change much.

What has it been now, a year?

Something positive should have come by now.

Wasn’t there some new commitee formed by The Zinke admin regarding African hunting? Seems duplicitous to do something like that, then just roll over on the import ban.

How about if the brass at DSC and SCI invite Mr. Zinke personally to their respective conventions? Maybe after visiting with the people on the ground in the areas affected by these bans, he may have a better idea about what is really going on.
Just a thought.

The answer now is NO...

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Nothing is going to change much.

What has it been now, a year?

Something positive should have come by now.

What are you really expecting from Mr Trump
The Train is gone IMO

There is still hope. This may not be exactly what it appears to be. Lots of things are going on. Granted all of them are not good but all of them are not bad.

One thing for damn sure. If we give up, we WILL lose. You all can do what you want, I am not giving up. I am actively doing things to help.

Zinke has been invited to speak at the hunt expo in Salt Lake in February. It would be an interesting speech to hear needless to say.

How much will the political situations in the various African countries affect all of this?

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
There is still hope. This may not be exactly what it appears to be. Lots of things are going on. Granted all of them are not good but all of them are not bad.

One thing for damn sure. If we give up, we WILL lose. You all can do what you want, I am not giving up. I am actively doing things to help.

+1 Larry

Science and reality means nothing.

Sport hunting has never been an issue in modern times.

It has been controlled very well.

One shoots older males, and the quotas are based on a very small percentage of the animals.

You really want to see reality?

How about all the hoopla created around the farm bred lions?

What difference does that make to conservation??

It has one big far ZERO effect on wild lions.

They are bred to be killed - or sold to zoos.

Why are the antis not screaming about all the other animals being bred, and killed, for human consumption?

Some of our people are supporting the ban of farm bred lions.

Once the antis get that done, with the support of some of our own people, they will turn their attention to other farm bred animals.

But some people are very short sighted, and cannot see this coming!

quote:

Why are the antis screaming about all the other animals being bred, and killed, for human consumption?

"Are or are not"?

The antis are not (most of them anyway except maybe the vegans) as humans need protein to survive and the good Lord provided them accordingly with domesticate species of animals - so its got their green light.

There is a whale of a difference between breeding animals and birds for human consumption against breeding Disney characters to be killed for a personal whim.

The only difference is the traits people assign to them. Your Disney remark says as much.

Make no mistake about it...it’s not about the lion...it’s the control they are after.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
The only difference is the traits people assign to them. Your Disney remark says as much.

Make no mistake about it...it’s not about the lion...it’s the control they are after.

Exactly!

And some of us are actively supporting this!!

According to some here, Trump was supposed to be the saviour of African hunting because his sons are hunters. We see how that turned out-“a horror show”......Hopefully Zinke can accomplish something his boss disagrees with.

Jerry...I read you loud and clear.

quote:

But some people are very short sighted, and cannot see this coming!

Is it a case of individuals being short sighted, or simply a fact that while hunters throw around the term "Ethics" none of us really take time to step back and look at each individuals concept of what is ethical and what isn't/what can be labeled as "Hunting" and what should NOT be labeled as hunting.

JAO.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
There is still hope. This may not be exactly what it appears to be. Lots of things are going on. Granted all of them are not good but all of them are not bad.

One thing for damn sure. If we give up, we WILL lose. You all can do what you want, I am not giving up. I am actively doing things to help.

+1 Larry

+2 Larry

quote:

Originally posted by impala#03:
How about if the brass at DSC and SCI invite Mr. Zinke personally to their respective conventions? Maybe after visiting with the people on the ground in the areas affected by these bans, he may have a better idea about what is really going on.
Just a thought.

Apparently SCI has been very busy. Well done.

***
Huff Post (November 23, 2017)

Group Lobbying To End Trophy Hunting Ban Is Alarmingly Close With Ryan Zinke
Animal advocates fear an “uncomfortably cozy and even improper” relationship.

WASHINGTON — Along with receiving thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Safari Club International while running for Congress, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spoke at the hunting advocacy group’s 2016 veterans breakfast, had a notable photo-op with its director of litigation on his first day as head of the Interior Department, and dined with its vice president in Alaska earlier this year.

The appropriateness of the relationship has come into question after the Interior Department lifted Obama-era bans on importing elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Last week, SCI announced via a celebratory news release that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had begun issuing permits for American hunters to import elephants killed for sport in the two African countries. SCI and the National Rifle Association had sued to block that ban in 2014.

President Donald Trump put the import permits on hold Friday ― reversing his own administration’s decision just minutes after the Fish and Wildlife Service released an official announcement.

But before that, Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, called the announcement of the reauthorized permits “jarring.” That it was made by SCI “suggests an uncomfortably cozy and even improper relationship between trophy hunting interests and the Department of the Interior,” he added in a blog post last week.

Founded in 1972, SCI is an advocacy group with more than 50,000 members that focuses on “protecting hunters’ rights and promoting wildlife conservation.” It has been criticized for giving out awards — with names like “Grand Slam African 29,” “African Big Five” and “Bears of the World” — to hunters who kill exotic and sometimes threatened species, like elephants, rhinos and polar bears.

SCI’s support for Zinke, an avid hunter whose office features a slew of taxidermied creatures, dates back to at least 2014, when the native Montanan first ran for the U.S. House of Representatives. The group’s political action committee donated a total $13,500 to Zinke’s 2014 and 2016 congressional campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission data.

During the 2016 election cycle, SCI was one of Zinke’s top 20 contributors, according to data compiled OpenSecrets.org. And only one candidate, Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine), received more money from the group.

In February 2016, during his first term in Congress, Zinke was a featured speaker at SCI’s annual veterans breakfast, where he “expressed his support of SCI and all the veterans they serve, then [led] the room in the Pledge of Allegiance,” according to a release by the group. SCI endorsed Zinke in the election later that year.

SCI celebrated last December when Trump tapped Zinke to lead the Interior Department — an agency that manages some 500 million acres of federal land, including the 59 national parks. The former Navy SEAL “has stood with hunters for greater access and for wildlife conservation policies based on sound science instead of emotion,” SCI President Larry Higgins said at the time.

The group urged hunters to phone their senators and encourage them to support Zinke’s nomination. And it applauded his confirmation in early March.

A day after being sworn in, Zinke signed a pair of hunter-focused secretarial orders. One overturned a federal ban on using lead ammunition and fishing tackle on Fish and Wildlife Service lands, including wildlife refuges. The other was aimed at expanding hunting, fishing and recreation access on federal lands.

At the signing ceremony at department headquarters in Washington, D.C., Zinke was flanked by representatives of nearly 20 outdoor and pro-hunting groups. SCI was, as the group described in a release, “front and center.”

“SCI’s Director of Litigation, Anna Seidman, had a prime spot, right at Secretary Zinke’s elbow, to witness the signing of these important orders for the hunting community,” SCI wrote on its website.

A little more than two months after being sworn in, Zinke was scheduled to deliver remarks at SCI’s annual “Lobby Day,” a day of meetings with legislators that coincided with the group’s monthly board meeting.

According to SCI, other Interior Department officials took Zinke’s place after he was pulled away on official business related to Trump’s executive orders threatening 27 of America’s national monuments.

After the event, SCI wrote in a report on its website that it was “obvious” that the department officials who attended “understood the value that SCI brings to the table in helping them to execute their missions.”

Less than a month later, Zinke met face-to-face with the group’s vice president, Eddie Grasser, according to documents obtained by the Western Values Project through a Freedom of Information Act request. After swinging by a fundraiser for Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) at a steakhouse in Anchorage, Zinke and several staff and security had dinner at a local brewery with Grasser and John Stacey, president of the Alaska Professional Hunters Association. The reservation was for 14 people.

The purpose of the meeting is unclear. Neither the Interior Department nor SCI responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment.

As Zinke has prioritized energy development over conservation, a number of hunting and fishing groups that came out as early supporters, including a few present at the March signing ceremony, have grown frustrated with him. But SCI has remained a loyal ally, even supporting Zinke’s controversial, oil-friendly order targeting an Obama-era conservation plan for the greater sage grouse.

SCI supports amending the Antiquities Act — signed by President Theodore Roosevelt more than a century ago — in order to strip away presidents’ power to unilaterally designate national monuments. Zinke has said the act has “become a tool of political advocacy rather than public interest.” And he has recommended Trump shrinking or otherwise weakening at least 10 existing national monuments, according to a leaked copy of the report Zinke submitted to the White House in late August.

While there is plenty to suggest there is a strong alliance, the recent decision by Zinke’s agency regarding trophy hunting stands out. Greg Sheehan, principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, broke the news to SCI during the African Wildlife Consultative Forum in Tanzania, an agency spokesperson told HuffPost last week. The forum, which ended Friday, was hosted by the Safari Club International Foundation and the United Republic of Tanzania.

Facing immediate backlash, Trump suspended his own administration’s decision shortly thereafter. And in a post to Twitter on Sunday, the president called trophy hunting a “horror show” and said he’s unlikely to allow for such imports. Citing White House aides, The New York Times reported Monday that Trump learned of the reauthorized import permits via news reports and had not been involved in the decision.

“I, personally, absolutely think this is a Zinke thing,” Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, told HuffPost. She noted Zinke’s installation of a “Big Buck Hunter” arcade game in the cafeteria of Interior Department headquarters, a bizarre attempt to highlight the contributions the hunting and fishing communities make to conservation.

“He seems to be well-embedded with the sport hunting crowd,” Sanerib said. “And obviously, this is something Safari Club has had at the top of their list.”

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Trump administration in an effort to maintain the Obama-era bans on importing elephants and lions.

In a letter to Trump on Monday, SCI ran to Zinke’s defense, saying he and the Fish and Wildlife Service “made crucial, scientifically supported determinations about hunting and the U.S. importation of African elephants from Zimbabwe and Zambia.”

“By supporting Secretary’s Zinke’s authorization of import permits, you can reverse the senseless acts perpetrated by the Obama administration against hunting and the sustainable use conservation of African wildlife,” the letter reads.

The announcement about elephant trophy imports came just days after Zinke announced the creation of an International Wildlife Conservation Council to advise him on “the benefits that international recreational hunting has on foreign wildlife and habitat conservation, anti-poaching and illegal wildlife trafficking programs.” The 18 members of the council, who have not yet been selected, will work to expedite the process of importing sport-hunted wildlife. It seems likely that SCI, the NRA and other industry groups will have seats on the council.

In an op-ed published last week by National Geographic, Katarzyna Nowak, a conservation scientist affiliated with the zoology department at the University of the Free State, Qwaqwa, in South Africa, expressed alarm at the news.

“The U.S. role in international treaties concerning wildlife conservation will be inexorably weakened once the fox guards the hen house, in which are the hallowed species Americans have chosen to legally protect,” she wrote.
***

It has been said so many times. Most people here are just talking about the Antis all the time. It`s not them who will decide the future of hunting, especially trophy hunting. It`s the average Joe who hasn`t decided yet. Antis hate everything about hunting. And every kind of hunt. You can`t turn them.
Most people in Norway support hunting, either they hunt or not. When you explain hunting to them, they can understand most hunting types. Hunting with dogs is a long tradition etc. You can even get them to understand hunting a black rhino when it`s old an barron and don`t contribute to the population anymore. Because you need money to protect the rest. BUT captive breed lions is impossible to explain. Remember, facts itself doesn`t matter. They need to actually get it with both emotions and facts. If you go back after all hindsight. CBL lions have been a disaster for the hunting industry. I wish they never started it. When all added up, it has not been good. Because ordinary people hates it just as much as the antis. Me personally I whish they never started with that. It has not been good for hunting and the conservation that is being done around it. And please don`t answer that it is good because fo different reason like it lightens the pressurse on wild lions. Then you say that quotas are being set after how many lions people are willing to kill, not how many should be set on quota. You also didn`t understand my post why it`s bad.

Don`t think Zinke can do much as Trump is against trophy hunting it seems. Calling it a horror show can`t deduce much else.