Animals & Politics

Trump Jr.’s Mongolia gambit fuels public outcry, Congressional action against trophy hunting

The news that Donald Trump Jr. had killed an imperiled species of sheep for a trophy in Mongolia in August 2019, without a permit, was shocking but not a surprise. American trophy hunters are accustomed to traveling the world to slay animals with impunity. 

Photo courtesy Publicdomainphotos-Dreamstime.com

But they can no longer do so without public scrutiny. The broad outcry over Trump Jr.’s secret trophy hunt reinforces the point that most Americans disapprove of killing threatened and endangered species, something they’ve signaled again and again since the killing of Cecil the lion in 2015. Over the last few years, we’ve been blessed to see the emergence of a strong and unified cultural intolerance for such indiscriminate slaughter by American hunters of wealth and privilege.

Congress is paying attention and has recently introduced legislation designed to halt American trophy hunters’ reckless rampage across the globe and their senseless killing of animal species already under threat. The Prohibiting Threatened and Endangered Creature Trophies (ProTECT) Act of 2019 would prohibit both the import of trophies and the hunting in the U.S. of threatened and endangered species.

Sadly, our country is the world’s largest importer of animal trophies, including federally protected species that our nation spends millions of taxpayer dollars to protect. Certainly, we must do all that we can to address the external pressures of poaching, habitat loss, and other human-caused mortality now driving many animal species toward extinction. But restricting trophy hunting of ESA-listed species would be an especially vital contribution to genuinely protect such animals throughout the world.

The ProTECT Act has received a strong boost in the form of scientific findings and public support from the academic community. Not long ago, a group of scientists challenged a letter published in Science, which emphasized the benefits of trophy hunting to conservation, on the grounds that the information presented was false and that some of the letter’s authors were closely tied to the trophy hunting industry. 

For many of us, and plenty of hunters, there is an important distinction between the action of a trophy hunter who kills imperiled species for fun and to get a “trophy” to take home to put on display, and that of hunters who kill to put food on the table. Opinion polls conducted in the U.S suggest that American hunters see trophy hunting as the least acceptable reason to kill an animal, with 72 percent of the hunting community denouncing it.

For years, anxious to defend the lax legal and enforcement policies of the animals’ home range nations, trophy hunters have paradoxically claimed that America has no business trying to dictate or intervene in other countries’ affairs. Yet, they have also argued that local communities are highly dependent on trophy hunting’s single-source revenues and boasted about the degree to which their killing of animals drives conservation incentives.

Now, however, there’s a new bulwark against such misrepresentation in the form of emerging alternatives that better support America’s foreign aid goals of stability, anti-corruption, and sustainable economic growth in local economies where trophy hunting takes place. The evidence of benefits and value tied to non-lethal wildlife related tourism is growing.

Public support is the bedrock of our successes in Washington, D.C., and you are our most powerful ally in instituting meaningful change. With growing bipartisan support, the ProTECT Act of 2019 represents an opportunity to bring about the demise of trophy hunting and to promote and strengthen ecologically and economically superior options like wildlife tourism. When Congress returns after the holiday break, we’re going to hit the ground running in our campaign to advance this exciting measure.  And we’re going to need your continued, sustained engagement to stop trophy hunting dead in its tracks.

Please contact your Members of Congress and urge them to cosponsor the ProTECT Act

BREAKING NEWS: Congress has reached a deal to fund the government and it’s good news for animals!

There are various approaches the HSLF team uses to bring about changes for animals, and one of our best tools is to pursue bill and report language in the annual appropriations bills that Congress must enact each year to fund the federal government and its agencies. We’ve been hard at work on this all year long—and it paid off in significant wins. We are thrilled to report that the U.S. House and Senate have struck a deal on a Fiscal Year 2020 appropriations package (known as an “omnibus”), which impacts our companion animals, wildlife, wild horses and burros, marine mammals, and animals in zoos and research facilities. Here are some highlights in the package:

iStock Photo

• Wild horses and burros—Provides an additional $21 million to the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, funds that can only be accessed after the agency submits a comprehensive plan on how it will implement an aggressive, non-lethal program. The program must be based on scientifically-sound, safe and humane fertility control tools excluding surgical sterilization, an increased focus on adoptions, and relocation of wild horses and burros to larger, more humane pastures instead of perpetually warehousing these animals in holding pens. Additionally, the bill prohibits the BLM and, for the first time ever, also the U.S. Forest Service from killing or sending to slaughter healthy horses or burros.
• Wildlife trafficking whistleblowers—Includes the Rescuing Animals With Rewards Act, which authorizes the State Department to award monetary incentives to persons who disclose original information concerning transnational wildlife crimes that result in a successful enforcement action.
• USDA data purge—Directs USDA to promptly resume online posting of all inspection reports and enforcement records under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and Horse Protection Act (HPA), in their entirety without redactions that obscure the identities of puppy mills, roadside zoos, and other businesses cited for violations. This is the first time Congress has included bill language (rather than report language) to fix this problem, and USDA will have no choice but to follow this directive.
• PAWS—Provides $2 million for a new grant program authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill, based on the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act, to help provide emergency and transitional shelter options for domestic violence survivors with companion animals. House committee report language directs the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development to coordinate implementation during FY20 (House and Senate committee report language not explicitly reversed is deemed agreed to by both chambers in the omnibus).
• Horse slaughter—Prohibits USDA expenditures on horse slaughter inspections, effectively preventing horse slaughter plants from operating in the U.S. during FY20.
• AWA enforcement—House committee report calls on USDA to require that inspectors document every observed violation, to reverse concealment practices that the agency has promoted during the past few years. The omnibus includes $31,310,000 for Animal Welfare Act enforcement.
• Horse soring—Provides $1 million (a $295,000 increase) for USDA enforcement of the HPA, to crack down on the cruel practice of “soring” Tennessee Walking Horses and related breeds.
• Class B random source dealers—Renews the prohibition against USDA using funds to license these dealers who are notorious for trafficking in dogs and cats obtained through theft for research and testing.
• Use of primates in research—Omnibus report language directs the National Institutes of Health to report to Congress on alternatives to reduce and replace primates in biomedical research.
• USDA Inspector General—House committee report presses this office to strengthen its animal fighting enforcement and to audit USDA’s enforcement of the AWA, HPA, and Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
• Humane slaughter—Renews bill and report language directing USDA to ensure that inspectors focus attention on compliance with humane handling rules for live animals as they arrive at slaughter plants and are offloaded and handled in pens, chutes, and stunning areas, and that all inspectors receive robust training.
• Pet food safety—Provides $500,000 for the Food and Drug Administration to address pentobarbital contamination in pet food, which has caused illness and death in pets.
• Disaster planning—Continues funding for USDA to coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and to support state and local governments’ efforts to plan for protection of people with animals and incorporate lessons learned from previous disasters. Directs USDA to work with producers that want to voluntarily develop disaster plans to prevent livestock deaths and injuries.
• Vet care—Provides $8,000,000 for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment program that encourages veterinarians to locate in underserved rural or urban areas.
• Wildlife protection funding—Maintains level funding for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs that protect species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Provides an increase of almost 30% from FY19 for the internationally focused Multinational Species Conservation Fund. The omnibus also rejects a proposed cut to the Wolf Livestock Demonstration Program, maintaining funding for its grants supporting proactive, non-lethal measures by livestock producers to reduce the risk of livestock loss by wolves, and to compensate producers for livestock losses caused by wolves.
• Marine mammals—Provides $3 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for North Atlantic right whale conservation, with $1 million specifically reserved for a pilot project for research and development of safer fishing gear to lessen entanglements with these critically endangered whales. Also maintains funding of the Marine Mammal Commission—a key independent federal agency tasked with addressing human impacts on marine mammals and their ecosystems—overcoming its proposed elimination in the President’s budget.
• Trophy imports—Directs the USFWS to reevaluate its current policy allowing imports of hunting trophies on a case-by-case basis and analyze how targeted investments and technical assistance to the exporting countries' conservation programs would impact the survival of elephants and lions, improve local communities, and sustain species’ populations. The omnibus expresses concern that the current trophy import policy is detrimental and may not adequately determine whether a country has proper safeguards in place to protect species vulnerable to poaching.
• Wildlife trafficking—Dedicates funds under the State Department and the Department of the Interior to combat the transnational threat of wildlife poaching and illicit wildlife trafficking. Prohibits use of State Department funds by any military units or personnel credibly alleged to have participated in wildlife poaching or trafficking. 

These victories are the product of months of effort, as we worked with Appropriations Committee leaders in the House and Senate and mobilized constituent support and strong bipartisan engagement for them. The package demonstrates again how animal protection transcends party lines and reflects core American values. We are hopeful that the House and Senate will swiftly approve this package and President Trump will sign it into law before Friday’s deadline, to bring all these accomplishments over the finish line.

HSLF and HSUS deliver big wins for animals in 2019: Our banner year in the nation's capital

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Given the highly polarized atmosphere in Washington, DC, these days, our crucial bipartisan wins for animals in 2019 give great cause for celebration. Thanks to the support and engagement of countless Americans, we hit our marks this year. We succeeded in getting one of our highest priorities, a landmark federal anti-cruelty bill, signed into law. And that’s not all. Read on to learn about some of the other achievements you helped to make possible.

Photo by Mark Bacon/Alamy Stock Photo

Animal Cruelty

The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, P.L. 116-72, enacted on November 25 following unanimous approval in the Senate and House, strengthens the 2010 federal animal "crush video" law by banning extreme animal cruelty in or affecting interstate commerce regardless of whether a video was produced.

Horse Soring

The Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R. 693, won a sweeping bipartisan vote of 333-96 in the House in July, and S. 1007, the identical companion bill, counts half the Senate as cosponsors. The PAST Act cracks down on the cruel practice of "soring" Tennessee Walking Horses and related breeds.

Wildlife Protection

With our urging, Congress moved forward on measures to address some of the most urgent threats to the world’s iconic and at-risk wild species, including:

• Wildlife trafficking—The Rescuing Animals With Rewards (RAWR) Act, H.R. 97/S. 1590, passed both the House and Senate. It authorizes the U.S. Department of State to target wildlife traffickers globally and combat international crime networks, including terrorist organizations. We hope to see the President sign this bill into law soon.
• Sharks—The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, H.R. 737/S. 877, passed the House by a resounding 310-107 vote in November, having cleared the Senate Commerce Committee in April. It prohibits the commercial trade in this country of shark fins and products containing shark fins, thereby reducing global demand for shark fins, helping reduce cruel finning and protecting ocean ecosystems.
• Whales—The Scientific Assistance for Very Endangered (SAVE) North Atlantic Right Whales Act, H.R. 1568/S. 2453, won approval by the House Natural Resources Committee in October and the Senate Commerce Committee in November. With no more than 400 North Atlantic right whales surviving, this bill provides vital federal funding for research to develop, test and use innovative technologies and other strategies to reduce the two main threats to the species: entanglements in fishing gear and vessel collisions.
• Big cats—The Big Cat Public Safety Act, H.R. 1380/S. 2561, received House Natural Resources Committee approval in September. It reduces the number of captive tigers, lions, cougars, and other big cats living in substandard conditions and protects public safety by banning public contact activities—such as “cub petting” and photo ops—and by prohibiting possession of big cats by individuals and entities lacking a USDA license.
• Trophy imports—The Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large Animal Trophies (CECIL) Act, H.R. 2245, passed the House Natural Resources Committee in September. This bill substantially restricts the import and hunting of any species listed or proposed to be listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Appropriations

We brought home some big victories for animals in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 omnibus bill signed into law in February, and within the House and/or Senate FY20 Appropriations bills, including:

• PAWS—The Senate bill provides $3 million for a grant program authorized by the 2018 Farm Bill, based on the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act, to support emergency and transitional shelter options for domestic violence survivors with companion animals. The House bill provides $2 million for these grants and includes language directing relevant federal agencies to coordinate implementation during FY20.
• Horse slaughter—The House and Senate bills both prohibit USDA expenditures on horse slaughter inspections, effectively preventing horse slaughter plants from operating in the U.S. during FY20.
• USDA data purge—The House bill directs USDA to promptly resume online posting of all inspection reports and enforcement records under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and Horse Protection Act (HPA), in their entirety without redactions that obscure the identities of puppy mills, roadside zoos, and other businesses cited for violations.
• AWA enforcement—The House committee report calls on USDA to require that inspectors document every observed violation, to reverse concealment practices adopted by the agency in recent years.
• Wild horses and burros—The House bill provides $6 million for a non-lethal pilot program using scientifically-based safe and humane fertility control tools excluding surgical sterilization, an increased focus on adoptions, and relocation to larger, more humane pasture facilities instead of perpetual warehousing in holding pens. The Senate bill provides $35 million to expand these humane and non-lethal management strategies to all wild horses and burros in the Bureau of Land Management’s care, and both the House and Senate bills prohibit the BLM and U.S. Forest Service from killing or sending to slaughter healthy wild horses or burros.
• Animal testing alternatives—The House bill provides $39.4 million more than the President proposed for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Computational Toxicology Program and Endocrine Disruptor Program, which develop replacements for animal tests.

We also delivered big results on the regulatory front, including:

Animal Testing

In September, the EPA announced that it plans to phase out and end all animal testing on mammals for chemicals and pesticides. Instead, the agency will focus on non-animal alternative technologies that are faster, more reliable and do not cause suffering. The agency plans to substantially reduce animal tests, including those it commissions in-house, as well as those that it requires businesses to conduct, by 2025, and to end them altogether by 2035.

Wild Horses

In March, the BLM agreed to return to a 2014 policy that allows individuals and organizations to buy only four wild horses over a six-month period, a necessary safeguard to ensure wild horses and burros aren’t bought by kill buyers who will send them to slaughter. Last year, the administration had put in place a new sales policy that allowed 25 horses to be purchased at a time, with no time limit between the purchases.

Licensing Requirements for the Animal Welfare Act

In March, USDA proposed a rule regarding much-needed changes to AWA licensing procedures. The rule includes a number of positive regulatory changes, such as requiring that licensees demonstrate compliance with the AWA regulations before being issued a license or a renewal, and requiring that dog breeding facilities provide continuous access to water, annual veterinary checks, and immunizations for diseases.

Relocation of Wolves to Isle Royale National Park

In March of 2018, the National Park Service announced its decision to augment the dwindling Isle Royale, Michigan wolf population with 20-30 animals within three years, as it was crucial for genetic diversity and ecological stability of this National Park. Currently, there are 17 wolves in the park, up from 2 when the relocation effort began.

When you sign on as a supporter of the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society Legislative Fund, it’s because you want to see the passage and implementation of positive protection measures for animals, prohibitions against cruelty across the range of issues, and legislative and regulatory action that makes both our nation and our planet much, much better for animals. We’re gearing up big-time for 2020, and we’re going to bring fight, poise, and will to the ambitious agenda we’ve set for ourselves. We work hard for animals, but we’re also working hard for you, our donors and supporters, and we never forget the simple fact that none of this would be possible without your support. We’re counting on you to stay with us in the fight for ALL animals in 2020.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and President of Humane Society International, the international affiliate of the HSUS.

Breaking news: U.S. House rejects amendment threatening protections for whales, dolphins

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The U.S. House has just voted 259 to 160 to reject a bad amendment that would have placed some of America’s most critically endangered marine mammals at even greater risk for their lives while making it easier for oil and gas interests to conduct offshore development activities.

Photo courtesy of noaa.gov

The amendment offered by Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., would have eviscerated core provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to fast-track approval of seismic gun surveys done for offshore oil and gas development. Currently, under the Act, which has provided protections to marine mammals, including whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions, since 1972, anyone who seeks to proceed with an activity that can cause the harassment, hunting, capture or killing of marine mammals in U.S. waters needs to apply for an “incidental take permit.”

There are good reasons for such safeguards. Seismic gun surveys send deafening pulses of sound to the ocean floor which bounce back up to be analyzed for signs of oil and gas deposits on the ocean floor. These are intense blasts of sound, which occur every four to six seconds for hours at a time and for days, weeks, or months on end, and they disturb feeding, breeding, and other behaviors among whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. They’ve even caused deaths of animals.

Rep. Johnson’s amendment would have provided an automatic approval process for such permits if the National Marine Fisheries Service didn’t issue a permit “fast enough.” It would also have allowed those with incidental take permits to harm more whales and dolphins, in a much larger area of the ocean. Additionally, it would have limited the NMFS’s ability to take into account any potential cumulative impacts that might threaten marine mammals, such as from multiple surveys in the same area.

Had the amendment gone through, it would have been particularly dangerous for North Atlantic right whales, already critically endangered, with less than 400 surviving along the U.S. and Canadian coast. Allowing more seismic gun surveys in their habitat could be devastating to this species.

We applaud House members for rightly rejecting this insidious amendment. This is a clear signal to Rep. Johnson and the oil and gas interests that Americans believe in the protection of precious marine wildlife and won’t sacrifice their interests so lightly.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

BREAKING NEWS: House votes to end shark fin sales in the U.S.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

The U.S. House just said a decisive and resounding “no” to the terrible shark fin trade, in which fishermen cut the fins off sharks and dump them back into the waters to drown, be eaten alive by other fish, or bleed to death.

Photo by Vanessa Mignon

House members voted 310 to 107 to pass the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, H.R. 737, a bill that would end all commercial trade in the United States, including all imports, exports, trade, distribution and possession for commercial purposes of shark fins and products containing shark fins. Americans overwhelmingly oppose this brutal trade, in which fins from as many as 73 million sharks are traded globally each year. Worse, this trade—driven by a market for shark fin soup—is forcing many shark species toward extinction.

The action next moves to the Senate, where a third of the members have signed on to a parallel bill, S. 877.

While federal law already bans finning in U.S. waters, and 13 states and three U.S. territories have passed laws banning or limiting shark fin sales, our nation continues to be an end market for shark fins, with shark fin soup still appearing on the menus of some restaurants. The United States also serves as a destination for shark fins obtained on the high seas where finning is unregulated, or from countries lacking good policies or enforcement on finning.

That’s why the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society Legislative Fund have been working so hard to secure a law that decisively ends this trade in the United States once and for all. By passing such a bill, our nation can reassert its standing as a global leader on the important issue of shark conservation. When the U.S. leads on such efforts, other countries follow, as occurred with the ivory trade.

Sharks are now being killed 30 percent faster than they can reproduce. It is estimated that between 2000 and 2011, 16,815 metric tons of shark fins were traded worldwide. This commerce is unsustainable, and some shark populations have declined by as much as 90% in recent decades, resulting in a crisis not only for sharks themselves but for the balance of ocean ecosystems.

Along with our affiliates stateside and globally through Humane Society International, we have been working to end finning. We helped enact federal laws in 2000 and 2010 that prohibited finning in U.S. waters, and we have worked in a number of states to secure the passage of laws banning or limiting the sale of shark fins, including California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington. We are continuing to work on similar bills in other states. Three U.S. territories—American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands—also have such bans.

Earlier this year, the Canadian Parliament passed a shark fin sales ban for which HSI had vigorously advocated, and we continue to work on ending shark finning and reducing the trade and consumption of shark fins globally.

Today’s victory for sharks in the U.S. House is a proud moment for those of us who have long sought to strengthen protections for these animals, and we are especially grateful to the bill’s lead sponsors, Reps. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, D-Northern Mariana Islands, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas. We now look to the Senate, where a counterpart bill has been introduced by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. In April, the Senate Commerce Committee passed S. 877 with a voice vote, and we are hopeful the bill will soon be brought to the full floor for a vote.

Time is running out for sharks. These iconic predators are important in marine ecosystems and serve as key indicators of ocean health. Declining shark numbers can cause irreversible damage to fragile ocean environments and, ultimately, to our earth. By taking decisive action now, Congress—and our nation—can reverse the tide for this keystone species, and for the ecosystems that depend on them.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

Scientists carry water for trophy hunting industry

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

For years now, trophy hunters have spun a web of lies to tie their ruthless killing of some of the world’s most at-risk animals to fake conservation benefits. A recent exchange in the prestigious Science magazine has laid bare links some scientists have with the trophy hunting lobby, and it has led to the magazine revising its own policy on how it identifies letter writers with ties to lobbying interests.

Michelle Riley/The HSUS

In August this year, the magazine published an open letter, “Trophy hunting bans imperil biodiversity,” led by five scientists from Oxford University’s wildlife conservation research unit and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and signed by 128 more. The letter claimed trophy hunting has a positive impact on conservation, and Amy Dickman, one of the letter’s lead authors, appeared on the BBC, where she claimed that imposing a complete trophy hunting ban is likely to cause "more animals to die.”

The letter from Dickman and the others also argued against anti-trophy-hunting legislation, like the CECIL Act (Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large Animal Trophies Act) now in Congress, and claimed that banning imports of hunting trophies would undermine efforts to protect lions, elephants, and other endangered animals.

What the letter’s authors did not disclose—but was soon exposed by another letter, this time from a British non-governmental organization—is that four of the five authors of that letter, including Dickman, Rosie Cooney, Dilys Roe, and Maxi Pia Louis, had worked for organizations and projects that received funding from trophy hunting industry groups, including Dallas Safari Club, Safari Club International, Safari Club International Foundation, Russian Mountain Hunters’ Club, Wild Sheep Foundation, and NACSCO, a Namibian organization that supports trophy hunting initiatives.

Further, at least two of the signatories work for or advise Conservation Force, another trophy hunting group that has been working to weaken trophy import regulations and the Endangered Species Act in the United States.

Think about this for a moment: these are scientists affiliated with prestigious entities, like Oxford University and IUCN, who are publishing their scientific opinion in a prestigious journal without disclosing that they have ties to the industry that stands to benefit from the policy recommendations the scientists are advocating.

The editors of Science, in addition to making the authors of the original article declare their conflicts in writing in an addendum, immediately announced their policy on letters is now under revision to ensure that authors make readers aware of financial and advisory competing interests.

The magazine also published several more letters from other scientists and advocates who wrote in to refute the sham conservation claims made by the scientists supporting trophy hunting. We appreciate the magazine’s response and commitment to avoiding such a situation in the future by revising its policies.

There may also be good news forthcoming on the International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC), which we have been telling you about on this blog. This deceptively-named council created by the Trump administration is packed with trophy hunters and gun lobbyists who have successfully pushed our government to reverse several policies protecting endangered and threatened animals over the last three years. Last week, The Hill reported that the IWCC may soon be terminated, with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt telling members at a recent meeting that he “hasn’t yet decided” on the pathway forward for the committee. The pressure comes from a court challenge to the council, with its deep conflicts of interests, filed by the Humane Society of the United States and our partner groups.

Lawmakers in Congress are also stepping up the pressure against trophy hunting, and recently a bipartisan group of representatives, with the support of Humane Society Legislative Fund, the Humane Society of the United States, and Humane Society International, introduced a bill, the Prohibiting Threatened and Endangered Creature Trophies Act of 2019 (ProTECT) Act, to prevent the hunting of any species listed as endangered or threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The trophy hunting industry is increasingly being exposed for what it is, and contrary to what they would have us believe, it is not an industry that benefits African economies, nor an industry that helps conserve endangered wildlife. All it really is, is a group of wealthy people who want to treat the world as their playground and mow down beautiful animals for fun so they can put their heads and hides on display in their living room. It’s time this industry is stopped in its tracks, and the deception is ended for good, and we are excited to see the progress being made on this on so many fronts.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

BREAKING NEWS: NIH reneges on promise, will not send 44 research chimpanzees to sanctuary

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

In a stunning about-face on its own promise, the National Institutes of Health today announced it will not send 44 chimpanzees, now held by the Alamogordo primate laboratory in New Mexico, to sanctuary.

Photo by Crystal Alba/Project Chimps

Just last October, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins reiterated the agency’s full commitment to retire all chimpanzees it owns or supports to the federal sanctuary Chimp Haven, saying that there would be very limited exceptions. These are animals who have spent their lifetimes in metal cages and they deserve to enjoy the rest of their days in an environment that simulates, to the best extent possible, the natural surroundings of a chimpanzee in the wild.

Dr. Collins had clearly stated that the only exception to retiring the chimpanzees would be in cases where relocation would severely or irreversibly accelerate deterioration of the chimpanzee’s physical or behavioral health. Today’s agency announcement contradicts that promise.

The NIH claimed that "it would be a serious risk to the chimpanzees’ health to move them." There were many flaws with the process that the NIH followed in deciding the chimpanzees’ fate: the panel was certainly not “independent” as it was made up of NIH’s own veterinarians and it did not include a veterinarian with sanctuary experience nor a primate behaviorist nor an ethicist. We expressed these concerns when the panel was created and had hoped they wouldn’t simply rubber-stamp the laboratory’s request to keep the chimpanzees confined at their facility for the rest of the animals’ lives while the laboratory continues to receive taxpayer dollars. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. There is no clear evidence that the long-term welfare of the chimpanzees was actually considered in making this decision.

We know that chimpanzees who are sent to sanctuary see an immense improvement in the quality of their lives. Since the inception of Chimp Haven, hundreds of chimpanzees, of all ages and health conditions, have moved there. There has not been a single death during transport and there are incredible stories of chimpanzees who have thrived at the sanctuary, including a chimpanzee named Grandma who was deemed as fragile when retired to Chimp Haven in 2005, yet lived happily there for another 10 years, reaching the age of 62.

We are putting NIH on notice that this fight is not over. Chimpanzees are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, and we share 99 percent of our DNA with these sentient and intelligent animals. HSLF and the HSUS have been working for a long time to end the use of chimpanzees in experiments and to get them to retirement in sanctuary and we will not let the NIH blindside the American public and let the chimpanzees suffer through the rest of their lives in the confines of a laboratory. We’re now evaluating our options for judicial review to compel the NIH to honor its obligation under the Chimpanzee Health Improvement and Maintenance Protection (CHIMP) Act, which requires that all government-owned chimpanzees deemed no longer necessary for research be retired to the national sanctuary. The NIH has a responsibility to all Americans to ensure that these animals, who have suffered their whole lives, finally get the quality of life—and a retirement—they deserve, at Chimp Haven.

Please take a moment to send a message to the NIH and urge them to reassess their decision to not retire these chimps.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

ProTECT Act introduced in Congress to ban trophy hunting horror show

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

President Trump has called trophy hunting a “horror show,” but on his watch, the Department of the Interior has dismantled regulations to protect wildlife and made it easier to import trophies of endangered and threatened animals. We have been encouraging members of Congress to step up the pressure against trophy hunting by Americans, and today a bipartisan group of representatives introduced the Prohibiting Threatened and Endangered Creature Trophies Act of 2019 (ProTECT) Act, which will help prevent the hunting of any species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Photo by Vanessa Mignon

The measure, introduced by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Pete King, R-N.Y., would disallow permits for killing these animals at canned hunting facilities in the United States and ban the import of trophies of ESA-listed species, including lions, elephants, leopards and rhinos.

Trophy hunters pay enormous sums to travel the world to kill rare and iconic wildlife, with the primary motivation of obtaining animal parts (their heads, hides, claws or even the whole stuffed animal) for mere display and bragging rights. Many of the species trophy hunters target, including the African lion, African elephant, African leopard, and black rhino, are at risk of extinction.

Sadly, the United States is the world’s largest importer of hunting trophies; between 2005 and 2014, a staggering 1.26 million wildlife trophies were imported into the country. This number includes the trophies of thousands of federally-protected animals, including 5,600 African lions and 4,600 African elephants. 

The current administration has exacerbated the problem: in 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) dismantled Obama-era regulations on trophy imports and announced that it would allow lion imports from Zambia and Zimbabwe. The agency signaled it would approve all trophy imports on a case-by-case basis, shielding these import permits from the public eye—a decision the HSUS, HSI and our partners have challenged in court.

The ProTECT Act would also cover endangered and threatened animals who are used for target practice here in the United States, in canned hunting operations. As difficult as it may be to believe, exotic endangered species like the scimitar-horned oryx, Dama gazelle, addax, Arabian oryx, barasingha, and yak can all be purchased by trophy hunters right here in our country and then shot in fenced enclosures with not even a shred of fair chase involved.

The FWS issues permits to allow these species to be killed in captive hunts in the United States and that’s a problem, because it creates an additional market for trophies from endangered and threatened species by fueling trophy hunters’ desires and may further encourage illegal poaching in the animals’ native habitat.

Hunters, trophy hunting trade organizations, and the current leadership at FWS argue that trophy hunting contributes to species conservation efforts abroad. But scientific studies have demonstrated the opposite, especially since the targeted species are already under siege by poachers, wildlife traffickers, and habitat loss. Trophy hunting depletes wildlife populations because hunters routinely kill the largest and strongest males, upsetting social equilibrium and diminishing species recovery efforts. Trophy hunting revenue doesn’t pass the cost-benefit test either. A 2017 economic report, commissioned by Humane Society International and conducted by Economists at Large, revealed that trophy hunting makes minimal contributions to African economies and jobs.

The majority of Americans deeply dislike trophy hunting and the import of hunting trophies into this nation. A 2017 nationwide poll released by the Humane Society of the United States showed that 69 percent of voters oppose trophy hunting altogether. Voters also oppose allowing American trophy hunters to bring home the bodies or parts of the elephants and lions they kill abroad by a margin of more than five to one.

Trophy hunting is a true scourge, and that’s why we invest so much time and so many resources to fight it both here and abroad. The ProTECT Act is a vital step toward ensuring the survival of the world’s most at-risk species, and we welcome it. It’s a top priority for the Humane Society Legislative Fund, Humane Society International, and the HSUS in Congress this year. It’s not too late to save these species from extinction, and our government can be an instrument of good on this issue. Please take a moment to ask your U.S. House Representative to support this important bill.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

Illegal government advisory panel touts 'benefits' of trophy hunting

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

It may be hard to believe that a group of celebrity and professional trophy hunters, a director of the National Rifle Association, and the president of the world’s largest trophy hunting group are advising our government on wildlife conservation. But that is exactly what the International Wildlife Conservation Council, a panel appointed by the Trump administration, is tasked with—a privilege they have exploited abundantly over the last two years to ensure that U.S. policy favors trophy hunters. This week, at the panel’s fifth meeting since it was created in 2017, it became clearer than ever that this group does not have the interests of animals—or the wishes of a majority of Americans—at heart.

Michelle Riley/The HSUS

Instead of spending their time considering the plethora of threats to African wildlife, which are driving many species to extinction, the members of the IWCC put on a pathetic display of ignorance, arrogance and manufactured “facts” to protect their own trophy hunting interests.

• They ranted and railed—unjustifiably—against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for not issuing as many import permits for trophies of endangered and threatened species as they would like. 
• They criticized the Endangered Species Act, the bedrock U.S. law protecting at-risk wildlife, for getting in the way of trophy hunters importing their animal kills.
• They aggressively questioned USFWS representatives for their agency’s support for giving giraffes international protection at the recent Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting. One council member went so far as to accuse the United States of making this policy decision based on “emotion” not science.
• They repeated the tired old claim that trophy hunting acts as an incentive to local communities in Africa to protect wildlife while ignoring the well-documented corruption and mismanagement in the trophy hunting industry. In a recent example of such mismanagement, local community leaders in Zambia called for a halt on trophy hunting in the country because hunting revenues are not trickling down to their communities.
• They harped time and again that Americans trophy hunting in Africa is at the heart of American culture and pushed the notion that American trophy hunting is a silver bullet guaranteed to solve development challenges in Africa. Trophy hunting, in fact, has very little benefit for African countries compared to ecotourism: of the at least eight African countries that allow trophy hunting, foreign trophy hunters make up less than 0.1 percent of tourists on average and they contribute 0.78 percent or less of the $17 billion in overall tourism spending in the studied countries. Trophy hunting tourism employment is only 0.76 percent or less of average direct tourism employment in study countries. A paper released this year estimated that wildlife tourism not related to trophy hunting generates $48 billion in revenues and supports 26 million jobs in Africa.

The group also failed to once acknowledge what multiple hunting industry reports and polls have shown in recent years—that 63 to 78 percent of Americans (including those associated with hunting communities) believe that trophy hunting is not an acceptable reason to hunt.

The IWCC symbolizes how far the United States has strayed from its position as a leader in wildlife conservation. Its very existence is illegal, because federal laws prohibit the establishment of advisory councils stocked with members who have political and financial interests in the agency action they’re influencing. The fact that the IWCC is mostly made up of trophy hunters and that one of them is the president of Conservation Force, which has filed dozens of applications on behalf of its trophy hunting clients to import body parts of at-risk animals like elephants, black rhinos, lions, and other imperiled species, makes it more of a trophy hunting trade association than a public policy panel.

The Humane Society of the United States and their partners are now engaged in a lawsuit challenging the legality of the IWCC. To our staff who attended this two-day meeting, it was abundantly clear that in addition to its other flaws, this panel is just a small group of elitist hunters clinging desperately to a colonial-American culture even as most Americans have moved on to a better appreciation of the risks wildlife face in our world today. They bring no value to the Department of the Interior’s understanding of wildlife conservation and should not be granted exclusive opportunity to influence our government through a special advisory panel just so they themselves can continue to hunt down—for fun—animals who are fast vanishing from earth.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

Breaking news: California leads the nation by banning fur sales, bobcat trophy hunting

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Moments ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom made history by signing into law two landmark bills: one banning the sale and production of all new fur products in California, and another prohibiting the trophy hunting of bobcats in his state.

Photo by Megan Lorenz/iStock.com

California, a trendsetter in animal welfare and in fashion, is the first state in the nation to pass a ban on the sales of fur, and we applaud Gov. Newsom and the state’s lawmakers for recognizing that California citizens do not want their state’s markets to contribute to the demand for fur products. The fur industry causes the suffering and death of more than 100 million animals worldwide each year, and animals on fur factory farms are forced to live in cramped, wire-bottom cages, deprived of the ability to engage in natural behaviors, before being cruelly killed by gassing or electrocution.

The law, which will go into effect in January 2023, is a monumental victory in the Humane Society of the United States' decades-long campaign to end this cruel and unnecessary trade. Hawaii and New York have introduced similar measures, and we’ll continue working hard with other cities and states to convince them to follow California’s lead.

The other bill Gov. Newsom signed today makes it unlawful to trophy hunt bobcats in the state, although the measure allows the lethal removal of any individual animal posing a danger to humans, endangered and threatened species, or livestock. Other states have passed temporary bans on trophy hunting bobcats after their numbers dropped too low because of hunting, trapping and habitat loss, but the California law goes above and beyond by taking a proactive step to end needless and cruel trophy hunting before the animals are pushed to the verge of extinction.

The law puts bobcats on a small list of protected species in the Golden State, alongside California’s other wildcat, the mountain lion. Bobcats at present face numerous other threats to their survival, like the recent deadly wildfires and urban sprawl. And each year, hundreds of these animals are killed by trophy hunters in California. In fact, over the past decade, trophy hunters have killed more than 10,000 bobcats in the state.

We are thankful to Gov. Newsom for signing these bills and to all the lawmakers who voted for them. Our special thanks to Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who authored the legislation on bobcats, as well as the bill’s co-authors, Assemblymembers Richard Bloom, Laura Friedman and Tasha Boerner Horvath, and Senators Ben Allen, Cathleen Galgiani and Anthony Portantino. We are also grateful to Assemblymember Laura Friedman, who introduced the bill on fur sales last December. It had many notable supporters among politicians and the fashion industry, including the California Democratic Party, Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti, the San Diego County Democratic Central Committee, the City of West Hollywood, InStyle magazine, Stella McCartney, DVF-Diane von Furstenberg, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Hugo Boss, Patagonia, H&M, GAP, J.Crew, Madewell, Des Kohan, Hiraeth and Inditex/Zara. Animal protection groups and citizens across the state mobilized in favor of the legislation.

Year after year, California has been the hands-down pace-setter among American states on a number of key animal-related matters, including passing the world’s strongest farm animal protection law, prohibiting the sale of puppy mill dogs in pet stores, banning foie gras, and ending the sales of animal tested cosmetics. For nine consecutive years, it has topped our Humane State report card, which ranks states based on a wide set of animal welfare policies. Today, by speaking out against fur and for bobcats, the Golden State has once again proven why it continues to be our nation’s undisputed leader on animal protection issues.

P.S.: As we celebrate these victories, our thoughts are with the people—and animals—of California who are affected by the wildfires. The HSUS's Animal Rescue Team is keeping an eye on the situation and will be standing by to assist as needed.

Kitty Block is President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.