Safari hunters are bringing home exotic and
endangered loot through a loophole in the Endangered Species Act,
says a report by the Washington, D.C., group, Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility. Worse yet, PEER says, agents from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are greasing the process rather than
policing it. By law, no permit can be given to bring a game trophy
back to the U.S. unless some money is used to “enhance the survival
of the species’ through foreign conservation programs. PEER says
wildlife agents in this country make little or no effort to make
sure such programs exist. The money isn’t peanuts: Hunters pay up
to $50,000 to bag an animal like the threatened argali sheep, the
largest wild sheep in the world. If the argali were officially
listed as endangered rather than threatened, as U.S. scientists
recommended over three years ago, its curved horns could not be
legally imported at all. PEER says big game hunting interests have
successfully pressured the wildlife agency officials to stall,
keeping the argali and another Asian sheep, the urial, off the
endangered species list. By continuing to issue scores of import
permits annually, the agency promotes the hunting of these animals
and helps drive both species to extinction, PEER
charges.
To order the 30-page Tarnished Trophies:
The Department of Interior’s Wild Sheep Loophole, send $5 to PEER,
2001 S St., NW, Suite 570, Washington, DC 20009. “Danielle
Desruisseaux
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Tarnished trophies.
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