https://www.fws.gov/press-rele...-protections-african



PRESS RELEASE
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Strengthens Measures to Enhance Conservation and Protections for African Elephants
Mar 29, 2024
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today published a final rule that will improve African elephant conservation by increasing protections for elephants imported to the United States. The rule strengthens protection and conservation requirements to help ensure long-term conservation and survival of elephants in the wild.

“The Service values collaborative conservation of wildlife all around the world and is committed to improving implementation of international conservation law” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams. “Our actions today will help support range countries’ efforts to manage and conserve African elephant populations and will further protect African elephants that are imported to the United States. We are optimistic that with this final rule and by continuing to work in partnership with range countries, wild African elephant populations will be sustainable into the future.”

Today’s action to amend the African elephant rule under section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act will strengthen protections of internationally traded live African elephants, increase transparency of the Service’s permit decision-making, and more closely align U.S. requirements with guidance from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Fauna and Flora. CITES is a convention of 184 Parties, including 183 countries and the European Union, that ensures species trade is legal, sustainable and traceable through appropriate regulatory and control systems.

Specifically, the rule will benefit African elephants by:

Supporting countries that import elephants to the United States to enact national legislation necessary to enhance elephant conservation and protections, including penalizing illegal trade.
Requiring that the authorized imports of trophies and live elephants will contribute to enhancing conservation and not contribute to the decline of the species.
Ensuring that imported live African elephants have strong protections once in the United States, including by requiring that these elephants and their offspring go only to facilities suitably equipped to house and care for them.
Clarifying sport-hunted import regulations and permit requirements to increase transparency with stakeholders.
African elephant numbers in the wild have fallen from as many as 26 million individuals at the end of the 18th century to an estimated 415,000 today. Over the years, they have faced numerous threats, ranging from habitat loss and degradation to poaching for ivory and retaliative killing due to human-wildlife conflict. Today, trade of live African elephants adds to the challenges they face.

Well-managed hunting programs provide some African elephant range countries an opportunity to generate significant funds for conservation, including for habitat protection, population monitoring, wildlife management programs, mitigation efforts for human-wildlife conflict, and law enforcement efforts.

For sport hunting to achieve its conservation potential, it must be well-regulated, include accountability measures, and have additional safeguards in place. Under this final rule, African elephant range countries that export sport hunted African elephant trophies to the United States will now be required to provide the Service with an annual certification on the current management and status of their elephants and the hunting programs in their country. This information will highlight what African range countries are currently doing to conserve their elephants and will help inform decision-making on permit applications.

As a result of these updated protections, the import of live African elephants, African elephant sport hunted trophies, and African elephant parts and products (other than ivory, which is regulated separately) into the U.S. will now be limited to the countries that have enacted national legislation to effectively implement the basic requirements of CITES and are designed to ensure species conservation.

The Service published a proposed rule Nov. 17, 2022, which opened a 60-day public comment period that was extended an additional 60 days at the request of range countries and other public commenters. A public hearing also was held. The Service reviewed over 130,000 public comments on the proposed rule from a range of stakeholders, including African elephant range countries, non-governmental organizations representing a diversity of opinions, and the public. An overwhelming majority of comments highlighted a desire to ensure healthy populations of wild African elephants.

The 4(d) rule for African elephants has been amended four times in the past. The most recent amendment was in 2016 in response to an increase in elephant poaching for ivory. Based on evaluations of the current threats to African elephants, these new amendments are necessary to protect and conserve African elephants both in the wild and in captivity in the United States.

The final rule will take effect May 1, 2024. The rule is available today here: https://www.federalregister.go...24-06417/endangered…

Press Release
Published
Mar 29, 2024
Wildlife Management
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https://biologicaldiversity.or...ODQxNi4xNzEwNzgyMTQz


For Immediate Release, March 29, 2024

Contact:

Tanya Sanerib, (206) 379-7363, tsanerib@biologicaldiversity.org

U.S. Tightens African Elephant Import Rules, Stops Short of Banning Trade

Agency Bows to Trophy Hunter Concerns

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today adopted new restrictions on U.S. imports of African elephant hunting trophies and live elephants but stopped short of a total ban on imports.

Bowing to trophy hunter concerns, the agency also backtracked from its earlier proposal. Today’s rule allows any biologically sustainable trade instead of requiring that elephant populations be stable or increasing before trophy trade is permitted — a major step back from true conservation accountability.

“I’m truly crushed this rule doesn’t ban trade in elephant hunting trophies to the United States, and it doesn’t even require stable elephant populations to allow trophy imports,” said Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These magnificent animals are globally cherished but under threat, and it's high time we stop letting wealthy trophy hunters turn them into décor.”

Today’s updated rule only allows trophy and live elephant imports from countries that annually certify their elephant populations are biologically sustainable and that viable elephant habitat is not decreasing. Countries will also be required to have adequate conservation legislation in place and being implemented — but that provision doesn’t kick in until 2026.

The United States is a major importer of hunting trophies globally, along with the European Union.

Today’s restrictions tighten the 4(d) rule for African elephants under the Endangered Species Act, which determines what protections the species receives. The new rule will foreclose elephant trophy and live imports from nations whose domestic wildlife laws fail to meet the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, but not until 2026.

Of the countries that export trophies to the United States, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia currently have national legislation that may not meet the requirements of CITES. These countries now have additional time to improve their legislation.

In 2016 the Obama administration implemented a near ban on the domestic trade in elephant ivory. Although that regulation provided some exceptions, it virtually closed the U.S. ivory market as part of an agreement with China, which closed its own domestic ivory market at the end of 2019. The revisions announced today do not address the ivory trade.

“We face a devastating biodiversity crisis that requires an elephant-sized response,” said Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These are mouse-sized rule changes that continue to treat elephants like commodities. We need global change that prioritizes biodiversity over profits.”

The rule revisions follow the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s 2020 reassessment of elephants, which found that forest elephants are critically endangered and savannah elephants are endangered. Unlike the IUCN, however, the rule fails to recognize forest and savannah African elephants as distinct, despite a petition by the Center urging the Service to acknowledge the split.

quote:

Bowing to trophy hunter concerns, the agency also backtracked from its earlier proposal. Today’s rule allows any biologically sustainable trade instead of requiring that elephant populations be stable or increasing before trophy trade is permitted — a major step back from true conservation accountability.

Did they initially want Elephant populations in Zim and Botswana to be increasing? Because last I heard those two countries were overpopulated by a large margin. What would the ultimate goal be with allowing certain populations to remain too large over the long term?

If you are hoping to create a big-ass desert and eliminate lots of other species, too many elephants seems like a good start.

Safari Club International Opposes Final USFWS African Elephant Import Rule
March 29, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Safari Club International vigorously opposes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) final rule restricting elephant imports released today. The final rule will make importing legally harvested elephant parts substantially and unnecessarily more difficult, and African wildlife conservation will suffer as a direct result.

SCI opposes the rule for one simple reason: these regulations will neither stop poaching or human-wildlife conflict nor protect biodiversity. This amendment will only hamper elephant conservation conducted by local stakeholders, indigenous communities, and the African range state governments that are stewards of the world’s largest elephant populations.

Elephant hunting is an important management and conservation tool for the southern African countries with the world’s largest elephant populations. In these countries, elephants can create real burdens for the local and rural communities who share the same land, often leading to human-elephant conflict such as crop raiding. Elephant hunting generates funds and incentives to reduce such conflict, combat poaching, and secure habitat in these countries.

While hunting remains an effective tool on the ground, the process of importing legally harvested elephants will now be filled with cumbersome and duplicative red tape requirements. The rule also infringes upon the rights of Africans to manage African wildlife. In fact, range nations and rural community organizations throughout the region have spoken out against these restrictions in “listening sessions” and other meetings with USFWS. The administration, however, has persisted in adopting unnecessary restrictions. The USFWS also failed to fully respond to comments from SCI and others in the final rule, reflecting the politically driven nature of the decision.

With respect to importing hunted elephants, the final rule requires range states to provide an annual certification regarding their elephant management and conservation programs while prohibiting the import of species from any country whose laws have been deemed to not fully implement the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), with which range countries already comply.

Put simply, it is audacious for American bureaucrats to mandate such arbitrary and capricious burdens on African nations that are already balancing the lives of their citizens with the long-term health of animal species for which they are responsible.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service has willfully chosen to ignore proven wildlife science and the sovereignty of African nations in its recent elephant rule,” said SCI CEO W. Laird Hamberlin. “African range states, SCI, and many others protested the need for this proposal, yet the U.S. government refuses to respond directly to our concerns and implement prudent conservation policy. Instead, the administration has chosen to pander to Western animal-rights groups and dictate senseless policies that will ultimately harm the elephants and other wildlife the agency claims it wants to protect.”

https://thehill.com/policy/ene...rts-stops-short-ban/

Biden administration tightens rules on African elephant imports, stops short of ban

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 03/29/24 11:38 AM ET


The Biden administration released updated rules Friday for importation of live African elephants and trophies derived from them.

The final rule, set to take effect May 1, tightens the rules around imports but does not outright ban the trade. It restricts imports to only those countries that can certify that their elephant populations are sustainable and not in decline.


Another provision, which takes effect in 2026, would require exporting countries to have conservation laws on the books for their elephant populations.

“The Service values collaborative conservation of wildlife all around the world and is committed to improving implementation of international conservation law” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said in a statement. “Our actions today will help support range countries’ efforts to manage and conserve African elephant populations and will further protect African elephants that are imported to the United States. We are optimistic that with this final rule and by continuing to work in partnership with range countries, wild African elephant populations will be sustainable into the future.”

Conservationists and wildlife advocacy groups expressed their chagrin that the rule stops shy of an outright ban on trophy imports, though.

“I’m truly crushed this rule doesn’t ban trade in elephant hunting trophies to the United States, and it doesn’t even require stable elephant populations to allow trophy imports,” said Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “These magnificent animals are globally cherished but under threat, and it’s high time we stop letting wealthy trophy hunters turn them into décor.”

The rule comes the day after another Biden administration update, a partial rollback of a Trump-era loosening of an Endangered Species Act rule, also received mixed reviews from advocacy groups for its failure to fully undo the provisions of the Trump rule.

https://www.humanesociety.org/...ephants-and-trophies

Press Release March 29, 2024
Victory: U.S. restricts the import of live African elephants and trophies
The African elephant population has declined 60% over the last 50 years


WASHINGTON (March 29, 2024) — Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a final rule governing import permits for live African elephants and elephant hunting trophies. This action effectively bans elephant hunting trophy imports from certain countries that serve as major destinations for trophy hunters—a win for the conservation of the species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“Today’s announcement serves as a victory for the animal welfare and conservation movement, as this is precisely what the Endangered Species Act was designed to accomplish. The U.S. government should not be in the business of promoting the decline of a species, especially one classified as threatened under its own law,” said Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “Elephants are complex, family-centered animals, important within their ecosystems and cherished by people all over the world. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s move is a meaningful step toward saving African elephants from extinction.”

Since the Fish and Wildlife Service classified African elephants as threatened in 1978, their global population has decreased by at least 60% due to poaching, habitat loss and other compounding threats. Trophy hunting and the capture of live wild elephants for exhibition in U.S. zoos contribute to this decline through direct removals of individuals and ripple effects negatively impacting the overall health and survival of family groups.

“For decades the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been allowing African elephant imports without current population data, transparency or effective oversight,” said Sara Amundson, president of Humane Society Legislative Fund. “With African elephants’ rapid global population decline and the abrupt reversals in federal protections between administrations, this new revision to the regulation will help the agency make decisions that enhance the survival of the species in the wild, instead of incentivizing its decline. Considering how the U.S. is one of the world’s worst offenders in the elephant hunting trophy trade, we thank U.S. Secretary of the Interior Secretary Haaland and the Fish and Wildlife Service for taking these steps to protect endangered and threatened species.”

The new revision clarifies guidelines for granting import permits. It also strengthens the agency’s oversight capacity and the transparency of the permit application process. The U.S. imports more hunting trophies than any other country in the world, accounting for 75% of global hunting trophy imports and almost 25% of global elephant hunting trophy imports between 2014 and 2018. The revised rule heightens the criteria required for the Fish and Wildlife Service to authorize imports, including from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia—the top exporters of elephant hunting trophies to the U.S.—making it harder for trophy hunters to import their hunting spoils and for captive wildlife facilities such as zoos bring animals taken from the wild into the U.S. for exhibition.

“The agency’s new rule is a strong step in the right direction to finally gain transparency and oversight on this highly politicized and harmful trade in African elephants killed for fun and gruesome souvenirs,” said Jeff Flocken, president of Humane Society International. “We will continue to fight for a full ban on the trade in African elephant hunting trophies, and we hope this sets a precedent that can be applied to other countries and to other imperiled species, like lions, giraffes and leopards.”

Under the Obama administration in 2014, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued rules suspending the importation of elephant trophies from Tanzania and Zimbabwe into the U.S. In 2018, the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Trump administration withdrew that rule and began to allow the import of elephant trophies on a case-by-case basis, although former President Donald Trump tweeted about the trophy hunting aspect of the rule, saying he was “very hard pressed to change [his] mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of elephants or any other animal.” Now, the Biden administration has heightened the criteria for what imports are allowed into the U.S.

In January, Belgium’s parliament voted unanimously to prohibit the import of hunting trophies from many endangered species into the country. This comes after the Netherlands instituted a ban on the import of hunting trophies for more than 200 species and France implemented a ban on the import of lion hunting trophies in 2015.