- Joined
- Dec 20, 2009
- Messages
- 4,421
It has been a very busy beginning of the legislative year with states. A slew of bills have been introduced in Hawaii, and bills are working their way through the process in Maryland and Vermont along with other states and of course theres New Jersey. We need people to step up and get personally involved in each of these states right away!
There are differences between each of the states, but the emerging trend is that ivory bans are being wrapped together with bans for trading any endangered or threatened wildlife species. This strategy is designed to prey on an anti-hunting bias from Cecil the Lion and split up support for people who have joined together against ivory bans.
It is CRUCIAL that people who own ivory dont fall into this trap. There is no conservation purpose served by criminalizing possession or sale of ANY legally imported wildlife specimen, including ivory. The divide and conquer strategy Animal Rights activists are employing are designed to get people to quibble over exceptions and other scraps. In that process, you concede that an ivory ban is justified and turn yourself into a mercenary seeking a carve-out to protect your own financial interests. Dont cede the high ground in this battle to the Animal Rights groups.
Likewise, recent press has shown how the Cecil the Lion political ploy is already causing lion culls and huge losses of revenue in Africa. Hunters have been cancelling paid hunts to avoid being demonized. By definition, these hunters only hunt in areas with strong conservation programs. The conservation programs lose money, and lion populations grow beyond what the habitat can support. Then the conservation programs need to spend valuable resources to cull lions without getting any financing from hunters in return. This cycle is entirely foreseeable, is being repeated with elephants and rhinos, and will doom the conservancies with the best record of protecting and growing populations of iconic species in Africa.
Please send me an e-mail at rmitchell@elephantprotection.org if you can testify in Maryland, Vermont or Hawaii - states where we currently have the most urgent needs. We need local constituents to confront the NGOs who are pushing these ill-conceived bills in upcoming hearings that will punish both innocent ivory and other wildlife owners along with the local African conservancies that protect wildlife.
Rob Mitchell
There are differences between each of the states, but the emerging trend is that ivory bans are being wrapped together with bans for trading any endangered or threatened wildlife species. This strategy is designed to prey on an anti-hunting bias from Cecil the Lion and split up support for people who have joined together against ivory bans.
It is CRUCIAL that people who own ivory dont fall into this trap. There is no conservation purpose served by criminalizing possession or sale of ANY legally imported wildlife specimen, including ivory. The divide and conquer strategy Animal Rights activists are employing are designed to get people to quibble over exceptions and other scraps. In that process, you concede that an ivory ban is justified and turn yourself into a mercenary seeking a carve-out to protect your own financial interests. Dont cede the high ground in this battle to the Animal Rights groups.
Likewise, recent press has shown how the Cecil the Lion political ploy is already causing lion culls and huge losses of revenue in Africa. Hunters have been cancelling paid hunts to avoid being demonized. By definition, these hunters only hunt in areas with strong conservation programs. The conservation programs lose money, and lion populations grow beyond what the habitat can support. Then the conservation programs need to spend valuable resources to cull lions without getting any financing from hunters in return. This cycle is entirely foreseeable, is being repeated with elephants and rhinos, and will doom the conservancies with the best record of protecting and growing populations of iconic species in Africa.
Please send me an e-mail at rmitchell@elephantprotection.org if you can testify in Maryland, Vermont or Hawaii - states where we currently have the most urgent needs. We need local constituents to confront the NGOs who are pushing these ill-conceived bills in upcoming hearings that will punish both innocent ivory and other wildlife owners along with the local African conservancies that protect wildlife.
Rob Mitchell