Lifestyles of the Rich and Heartless

By Rhino Girl, Fightforehinos.com

Trophy hunting is big business. The industry employs ranchers, outfitters, professional hunters, gun manufacturers, and taxidermists alike. People with time, money and a propensity for killing, keep the business going at the rate of 200 million a year.

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SCIIn addition some hunters have group memberships ($1500 membership fee) to elite clubs such as Safari Club International. (These clubs sponsor killing competitions. There are awards given to the most animals slaughtered.  and they even keep a record book listing names of who killed what animal, when.)

Good news if you make a living out of dead animals, bad news for the environment, for the safari/tourism industry, and the animals.

Each year tens of thousands of animals are killed by US hunters in foreign countries. The body parts are legally imported back into the US. (While the Endangered Species Act only allows importation of endangered species for scientific research, there are loopholes allowing trophy imports.)

Pro-trophy hunters argue this is GOOD for conservation. Their stance is that the money spent on the hunt is poured back into the community for conservation efforts.

In reality, research published by the International Council by Game and Wildlife Conservation (a pro-hunting group), shows only 3% of revenue from hunts goes back to the communities.

In contrast, ecotourism is a $77 billion global industry; employing tour operators, guides, lodge and restaurant employees, vehicle drivers, park guards and people who benefit from the sale of souvenirs.

elephant-tourism

Conservation is about protecting a species and environment. Killing seems a complete contradiction. Serious about conserving?  Put the money toward donations or a safari trip where the only shooting is with a camera.

Taking conservation seriously is the only way to protect the rhino, lion, and elephant among others, is to ban hunting of endangered species all together, at least until trade in parts is under control. With poaching so widespread, it is too difficult to distinguish so-called legal horn or tusk from illegal.

disregard-for-species-cartoonThe Safari Club International protects the hunter via lobbying the US Congress to weaken the Endangered Species Act and petitioning the Fish and Wildlife Service not to list certain species as threatened or endangered.

But with the Endangered Species Act open to thrill seeking hunter lobbyists, who protects the animals?

 



Why the Animal Welfare Act Doesn’t Protect Animal Welfare

animals-Labs

The enormous majority of animals in the United States have no legal protection from violence and other cruelty. The shocking ways that factory farms treat them don’t break the law.

The fact that we have a federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) creates the impression that there are at least some basic minimum standards that apply to all animals. That’s not true.

The law doesn’t cover animals raised for food. That is more than 10 billion individuals. It also leaves out 95 percent of the animals experimented on in research labs — probably another 100 million individuals. None of these beings has any legal protection from cruelty in the United States, except for a few isolated cases where a brave whistleblower has recorded extreme abuse and a couple workers have gotten slaps on the wrist.

The AWA is supposed to cover exhibited animals, like those in zoos. But even there it doesn’t do wonders. Tony the Truck Stop Tiger has been locked up alone, on exhibit in a barren cage at a truck stop, for just about all of his 13 years, amidst the din of diesel semis, the glare of floodlights that are never turned off, and the harassment of people who throw things at him to make him move. Lawyers and animal advocacy organizations, like the Animal Legal Defense Fund and PETA, have spent years doing what you do when someone breaks a law: going to court. Tony is still in his cage.

Unless the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) decides to enforce the law, for many animals it might as well not exist. No one else has this power. Some laws give individuals the opportunity to take law-breakers to court, but not the AWA. Only the USDA can sue. More often than not the USDA, which is more likely to be found helping farmers sell meat, doesn’t feel like going after people who make money exploiting animals. It is designed to be on their side. Protecting animals doesn’t merit even a mention in the agency’s mission statement.

So the people who really care about animals can’t help them through the courts. Judges agree with Congress that the courthouse doors should be shut to people who care about AWA violations. Since the Act isn’t intended to protect people, the courts won’t let people use it to sue.

The judges, at least, are being consistent. In every kind of lawsuit, not just cases about animals, only people directly affected by someone breaking the law can go to court over it. Here’s an example: say a contractor agreed to remodel my sister-in-law’s house, took her money and never did any work. No matter how angry I am, I can’t sue the contractor. Only the person directly affected can sue — in this case, my sister-in-law.

There is a catch-22 here: people can’t bring lawsuits on behalf of animals harmed by illegal conduct, but the animals can’t sue either, seeing as how they are animals and courts are very picky about that human/non-human distinction. In other words, when the truck stop makes Tony the Tiger’s life utterly miserable, people can’t sue for him, and he can’t sue for himself. Only the USDA can save the day, and generally speaking, it doesn’t want to.

This story illustrates how little the USDA wants to be in charge of protecting non-human animals. Congress gave the agency the job of making regulations that would sort out the details of the AWA. One of the first things the agency did in the area of animal experimentation was to declare that mice, rats and birds were not covered. That is 95 percent of the animals researchers use in labs.

Congress passed a law, and the president signed a law, to protect animals used for lab experiments. Then the USDA unilaterally decided that the law should protect only 5 percent of the individuals it was intended to help.

Here’s an illustration of why these laws are all but useless. The Animal Legal Defense Fund went to court and got a ruling that the USDA’s exclusion of mice, rats and birds from the AWA was not kosher and must be changed. Then a higher court said, “Wait a minute, ALDF. You’re humans. No one experimented on you. Get out of this courtroom.” Their victory was short-lived.

The Animal Welfare Act is a national law. What about the states? They could adopt laws to protect their own animals.

They could, but they usually don’t. In fact, the majority of states went out of their way to make sure cruelty to farm animals stayed legal. Since 1990, 36 states have adopted laws that make farms, including factory farms, immune to anti-cruelty laws. As David Wolfson points out in his book “Beyond the Law: Agribusiness and the Systemic Abuse of Animals Raised for Food or Food Production,” the fact that so many states felt compelled to set this immunity in stone demonstrates their understanding that if they didn’t, the things that happen to farm animals every day would be found unlawfully cruel.

So the AWA protects very few animals, and those only haphazardly, thanks in part to the USDA’s indifference. State laws can be even worse. As a result, billions of beings who feel pain, who have desires and who don’t want to die, are tortured and killed in the United States every year, while the government cheers it all on.



Heard around the Net (verbatim): An exchange on hunting

Excerpts found on the International Animal Rescue Foundation World Action South Africa (Facebook) page

“The bottom line is that far too many people still regard these crimes against animals as “normal” and legal behavior. In my view, this alone should be proof conclusive that “God” does not exist, and if s/he exists, what a mess s/he made of our planet by making humans the summit of the animal pyramid! All of it  compounded hugely by widespread human ignorance, selfishness and political corruption. Not to mention the ineptitude of so many big animal protection groups.”—P. Greanville

lionessKiller

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International Animal Rescue Foundation World Action South Africa•••
“The time will come when public opinion will no longer tolerate amusements based on the mistreatment and killing of animals. The time will come, but when? When will we reach the point that hunting, the pleasure in killing animals for sport, will be regarded as a mental aberration”.Killer – Gary Kock — with Ishtar Freya Locutora, Marina Zárate, Natalia da Luz, Paddy Panda Da Bear, Temur Lachkepiani, Edna Molewa, Land Macs, Simone Emaitre, Bunny Carranza, Helen Troy, Jose Calos Depre, Charmaine Marion Gold, Ainim Lolliepop Torina, Craash Beck, Gavin Tonks, Manuela Mescalchin, Bob Linden, Michele Brown, Jasha Kossio, Daca Granic, Patti LePage and Titi Franciosi.Like · · Share · 11 November 2013

Another great accomplishment for humankind.

Another great accomplishment for humankind.

• The hunter’s name could not be corroborated but many on this thread claim it is one Gary Kock.


New Ambassador Caroline Kennedy Shocks the Japanese with Her Strong Criticism of Japan’s Cruel Dolphin Slaughters. What Comes Next?

Tough talk from the U.S., but the Pentagon’s shift of military forces to the region may have its own impact on marine ecosystems.
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There are only about 50 Okinawan dugongs left at Henoko Bay, the best remaining habitat for the endangered species, and the proposed site for a land-filled military airfield.

Aircraft dropping Mark 82 227 kg high-drag bombs over Farallon de Medinilla Island, Mariana Islands, during military exercise.
SSgt. B. Zimmerman, USAF/Wikimedia Commons
Click to enlarge.

The U.S. military has been conducting such full-spectrum live-fire training for the past three-and-a-half years over a half-million square miles of the open Pacific, and also upon the island of Farallon de Medinilla. Farallon de Medinilla, once teeming with amazing sea life and rare migratory birds, has been bombed and disfigured to unrecognizability.

On Guam, the most southerly Mariana island, the military is planning on dredging over 70 acres of one of the world’s healthiest and most vibrant coral reefs, to make way for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Scientists say that, if the project is allowed to move forward, the reef will be destroyed before many of its endemic species can even be discovered, let alone saved.

Further west, the Pentagon is eyeing Okinawa’s most lovely, pristine bay, at Henoko, to build yet another base. Okinawa already contains 38 military facilities and 26,000 troops. In a 2009 letter to President Obama, over 400 environmental organizations urged him to cancel plans to build the base, in order to preserve the best remaining habitat for 50 Okinawan dugongs, a rare manatee that is a cultural treasure in Okinawa. But Obama never responded, and now, five years later, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has called the base construction “absolutely critical” to regional security. Okinawans, however, see nothing “secure” about the irreversible destruction of their land and resources by U.S. forces. After decades of rapes, crime, noise pollution, aircraft crashes, continual contamination of land and water, and a host of other base-related evils, the Okinawans believe real security will come only when the troops are out entirely.

And to the north, on the southern Korean island of Jeju, villagers have been conducting a 24-hour protest vigil for the past seven years, outside the construction site of a high-tech navy base being built by the South Korean government to function as a key nexus in the U.S. military pivot. Nearly half completed, the base is intended to house up to 8,000 marines and 20 warships, including nuclear submarines, giant aircraft carriers, and destroyers equipped with cruise missiles. It is being constructed in an area rich with spectacular soft-coral habitats that provide sustenance to Korea’s only remaining pod of dolphins, and is directly adjacent to a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Tragically, much of the coral has been dredged, leaving the dolphins to perish.

On land, Jeju base construction has cemented over a one-mile stretch of what was once a wondrous rocky wetland bubbling with pure freshwater springs. The area had served as a unique breeding ground for over 500 species seaweed and 86 species of unusual shellfish, as well as three endangered species: the red-footed crab, the endemic Jeju freshwater shrimp, and the boreal digging frog. As recently as two years ago, this coastline had provided the village with the Earth’s finest nutrition for the past several thousand years. Today, this once-thriving ecosystem is dead, and villagers must look for jobs to survive– perhaps at one of the many fast-food joints sprouting up to accommodate the new base economy.

Regardless of which nation is to blame, the death knell tolls for all marine creatures in the Asia-Pacific. Ms. Kennedy, who clearly cares about the humane treatment of all living things, is in a position to make a difference at this critical juncture in environmental history. Let’s hope she can bring equal attention to how the American tradition of militarism is ravaging our average ocean, just as she has spoken out on the barbarity of Japan’s dolphin-hunting tradition. That would give the cetaceans real reason to rejoice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Koohan Paik is a journalist, media educator, and Campaign Director of the Asia-Pacific program at the International Forum on Globalization. She is also a Fellow with the Korea Policy Institute. In 2011 and 2013, she helped to organize the Moana Nui conference in Honolulu, which brought together international activists, scholars, politicians and artists to consolidate Asia-Pacific discourse as it relates to geopolitics, resource depletion, human rights and global trade. She is the co-author of The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii’s Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth, and has written on militarism in the Asia-Pacific for The Nation, Progressive, and other publications.



Kenyan ranger’s moving letter to American rhino hunter

Africa Geographic Editorial on January 23, 2014
SUGGESTED BY MELANIE ANDERSON |||  RELATED: Nothing fair or gentlemanly about hunting

Raabia Hawa

Raabia Hawa

Information provided by: Walk With Rangers

A Kenyan grassroots initiative, Walk With Rangers, has spoken out against the controversial rhino auction held by the Dallas Safari Club that saw the highest bidder, Mr. Corey Knowlton, cough up a staggering US$350 000 to hunt an endangered black rhino in Namibia.

“The sum is pittance compared to the value of our wildlife,” says Raabia Hawa, an honorary game warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service and founder of the Walk With Rangers initiative.

walkWithRangers

Ms. Hawa has published an open letter to Mr. Knowlton, expressing sadness at the threats he has received in heated debates on online forums. The open letter also addresses the conservation values of old rhinos which Mr. Knowlton contradicts in referring to the rhino as ‘too old to breed’ and deeming it valueless. Her views on this have been backed by world- reknowned wildlife biologist and documentary host, Ian Redmond.

RhinoCalf

Rhino calf. His prospects for a normal residence on earth are dim.

Other conservationists speaking out through the initiative are Kuki Gallman, who has cited her personal 40 years of experience working with wild rhinos in Africa.

The initiative will be presenting a petition to Mr. Knowlton and the Dallas Safari Club signed by rangers and conservationists from the field in the coming few weeks, saying they are frustrated that the voices of those who really are saving species to the point of risking their lives, are too often ignored.

The open letter is available to read below. Walk With Rangers is an initiative that will launch in June 2014 aimed at raising awareness and funds to further enhance anti-poaching operations on the ground. The initiative is in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service and its Tanzanian counterpart.

From a wildlife warden to a trophy hunter.

Dear Mr. Corey Knowlton,

I hope this letter finds you and your family well in light of recent developments surrounding the Namibian black rhino hunt auction.

Mr. Knowlton, I had only just returned from anti-poaching patrols when I opened up Facebook and saw the flurry of posts and comments mentioning your name. I did not comment until a few days later (please see your page inbox) as I felt I really needed to understand this situation better.

I have watched several of your interviews and would like to start by apologizing for what your family must be enduring, I know how important family is and you must feel terribly threatened. Please do convey my apologies to your wife, and your children on behalf of myself and the scouts I just spent two weeks with fighting poachers and illegal loggers.

Sir, please know that we are protectors of life, not just because we are rangers and scouts, but because we are human. We must only take that which is sustainable and in a way that will not bring harm to the delicate balance of nature. This is our way, the way of true Africa.

Sir, I have struggled to understand why SCI and DSC continue to put prices on the heads of our wildlife. It is laughable that they even think they have any right. The wildlife of a nation remains the sovereign property of its people. Would this not mean then, sir, that privatizing such public property would, in fact, be a gross violation of the rights of the African people? I will let you ponder over that for a while.

We are in the wake of a crisis that has gripped our region. Poachers have decimated our herds, and Africa is no longer teeming with wildlife. You kind sir, have been duped into believing that your hunt will aid conservation in Africa.

It will not. Aside from gaining Namibia huge disrepute, it will go against the very fiber of what we are trying so hard to achieve – the protection and true management of our last wild things. It is also imperative to note here that local African communities do not eat rhino meat. Please ask Mr. Carter of DSC to stop shaming our people and insulting your intelligence.

Initially when questioned on the hunt, the response resonated ‘support for conservation and anti-poaching’ with specific focus angling towards ‘better training and equipping rangers.’ Mr. Knowlton, let me assure you that this is most discourteous and rather insulting. Is this what SCI and DSC have reduced the value of our wildlife to? A few boots and uniforms?

Please sir, I plead with you to understand what we are facing. Exactly a year and some days ago now, my colleague and good friend was shot by poachers. He stood right in between a rhino they were targeting. He took the bullet for the rhino. He didn’t ask it’s age, he didn’t ask if it was a breeding bull, he didn’t ask if it was male or female, white or black. He just saw poachers, and a rhino, and did what he knew he had to do. THAT, kind sir, is true conservation, management and protection that will ensure the survival of our precious rhino species.

By now you must think I’m just ‘another one of those bunny hugging antis’ and I am fully cognizant that you are probably not seeing any ‘conservation value’ in my words. So I will share with you the following;

“In forty years of close association with black rhinoceros, I have NEVER known of a free ranging wild old male past his breeding period targeting, and killing, rhino females and calves but, rather, the odd fights have only, in my own experience, occurred amongst breeding competing males, as is common in other species.

In Africa old age is respected: by extension, it is un-African and basically unethical not to allow an old male that sired many calves a peaceful retirement, in the same way as breeding bulls in the cattle world are put out to pasture, not sent to the butcher, once they stop being productive. It is equally unethical to use two sets of measures for poachers, who shoot a wild animal for financial gain, and are arrested or shot, and for a wealthy legal hunter who can pay a fortune for the pleasure to kill it, and is congratulated instead? In both cases a dead endangered animal is the end product. This auction is cruel, ill-timed, and to be condemned.

If the person bidding to shoot the rhino bull has that spare cash available, why not DONATE it to the cause and leave the poor rhino alone? The old rhino does not deserve a bullet.

– Kuki Gallmann; Conservationist, author, founder of The Gallmann Memorial Foundation and honorary game warden.”

Sir, we on the field do not understand the logic in this matter. For us, every single one is absolutely critical to the survival of the species, to the sustainable development of the ecosystem they are a part of, and most of all, to the well being and protection of our culture and heritage.

You seem to be a pragmatic man, which is why I’m writing to you. I note your concerns for your family and hope you see our concerns as conservationists and protectors of those we love as our own, the wildlife our friends have fallen trying to protect (I’m also quite sure my colleague would have taken the bullet if you were on the other end of the gun instead of a poacher).

Hunting never has been, and probably never will be, in the true interest of the African people or nations. I appeal to you to spend some time with us to see this for yourself. It is not conservation, and the government officials that continue to allow such ‘fun hunts’ on endangered and critical species, must be ashamed. Indeed they know our great herds are gone, and the more this continues, the more we will fall into the abyss of misery and I’m sure, kind sir, that you do not wish such a ferociously merciless fate for us.

Mr. Knowlton, as I write this I am reading the news from neighboring Tanzania. Poachers have killed one black rhino, and now there are just 35 remaining. Do you think perhaps that DSC would be willing to use the us$350 000 you gave them in good conservation faith, to do a translocation? I know the ‘old bull past breeding’ excuse was thrown around, but I share with you the sensible words of Dr. Ian Redmond, a world-renowned and respected conservationist and biologist, “An old male self-evidently has a good immune system and may carry the genes giving immunity to the next epidemic which might kill some apparently stronger young males. In such circumstances an older male might resume breeding and pass on those important genes.”

Words worth considering don’t you think?

Wildlife protectors and conservationists don’t usually get to air our views Mr. Knowlton, rangers are too busy on the field, protecting wildlife and often don’t have access to world news. I see SCI and DSC have taken full advantage of this, which isn’t really fair.

You deserve a balanced view on this matter, so I will soon be sending you a petition, signed by conservationists and rangers from as many outposts as possible.

Again, I thank you for your time.

With respect and kind regards,

Raabia Hawa
KWS Honorary Warden,
Founder, Walk With Rangers.
Twitter: @raabiahawa