At Dallas Safari Club convention, rhinos, elephants and bears are among hundreds of wild animals on offer for a thrill kill

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson

February 8, 2021 0 Comments

At the Dallas Safari Club convention, which begins Wednesday, the lives of hundreds of wild, rare and exotic animals will be on offer. Above, a wolf head and skins on display at the 2020 convention. Photo by the HSUS988SHARES

https://blog.humanesociety.org/2021/02/dallas-safari-club-convention-rhinos-elephants-bears-on-offer-for-thrill-kill.html

The annual Dallas Safari Club convention is a sickening display of the havoc American trophy hunters wreak year after year on the world’s wildlife, with their penchant for killing endangered and at-risk animals. The pandemic has forced the 2021 convention to move online this year, but that doesn’t mean it has become any less deadly.

At the convention, which begins Wednesday, the lives of hundreds of wild, rare and exotic animals will be on offer. Trophy hunters looking for a thrill kill and for heads and hides to decorate their living rooms can pay to mow down animals including elephants in Zimbabwe, brown bears and black bears in Alaska and leopards in Namibia.

Canned lion hunts, where the hunter kills an animal trapped in an enclosure, are also on offer, despite the DSC’s purported opposition to captive-bred lion hunts—opposition the group reiterated as recently as November 2020.

Our staff did a detailed and in-depth analysis of the auctions donated by outfitters and exhibitors at the convention this year. Following are some of their findings:

• On offer are 183 hunting auctions donated by outfitters that will lead to the killing of at least 205 animals in 24 countries.
• The most expensive international auction item is a $70,000, 10-day hunt of desert bighorn sheep in Mexico followed by a $50,150 leopard hunt in Namibia and a $42,500 ibex hunt in Spain.
• The most expensive U.S. auction item is a 10-day hunt for a brown bear in Alaska valued at $52,850.
• Trophy hunters can also bid on elephant hunts in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia, a giraffe hunt in South Africa, brown bear and black bear hunts in Russia, and a wolf hunt in Canada.
• Items like firearms, apparel made of beaver, mink and lynx fur, Swarovski Optik equipment such as a riflescope, and an $80,000 diamond necklace are up for auction as well.

Altogether, these items on auction are expected to generate $3.5 million in revenue for DSC.

Additionally, there will be 849 exhibitors at the convention, including 351 hunting outfitters who will together offer hunting packages to kill at least 319 species in 70 countries. These include:

• Polar bears, cheetahs, wild sheep and monkeys.
• Packages to kill the “African Big Five”—elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards and Cape buffalo—and the “Tiny Ten”—small African antelope species, some under eight pounds.
• Canned lion hunts in South Africa, offered by 39 South African exhibitors. Most, if not all of those, are likely captive-bred lions.
• Sixteen canned hunts of exotic and native species in the United States are also up for auction.
• Canned puma hunts in Argentina, which have been extremely controversial locally. Advocates’ exposés show the pumas are kept in cages, drugged and transported to the hunting reserve before being released and killed by a trophy hunter.
• Rhino trophy hunts in South Africa, including critically endangered black rhinos. This comes on the heels of a recent announcement by the South African government that its rhino population is being decimated, with the rhino population in Kruger National Park dropping by a mindboggling 70 percent over the last decade. South African National Parks, which overseas Kruger, auctions off black rhino trophy bulls to hunting concessions, including DSC exhibitors.

There is something terribly wrong with an organization whose members think it’s fun to kill rare and beautiful animals who are fast disappearing from earth. Unfortunately, trophy hunting is a multi-million-dollar commercial enterprise that continues to survive because it is the preserve of a handful of people with friends in high places. Most Americans do not support trophy hunting, however, and with your support we are working on so many fronts to stop it: through legislation, in the courts, and by raising awareness through investigations and analyses like this one. It is alarming that even a global pandemic has not succeeded in reducing the bloodthirst of these trophy hunters. But we continue to be vigilant and we will keep the spotlight firmly turned on these craven goings-on until they end for good.

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

The protection of wildlife is not about killing; it’s about cooperation that stops the killing

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson

October 23, 2020 0 Comments

If SCI wants to serve the greater good of wildlife conservation, it should join with us and other organizations in support of the numerous federal and state bills aimed at saving and protecting endangered wildlife worldwide. Photo by iStock.com79SHARES

Our agenda for the protection of wildlife is an ambitious one, focusing on the most serious threats to threatened and endangered animals in the United States and around the world. We’ve invested a lot of energy and resources in the fights to stop the trophy hunting industry in its tracks, to minimize human-wildlife conflict, halt wildlife trafficking, reduce consumer demand for products derived from endangered and threatened species, cripple the shark fin trade, end commercial whaling and other threats to marine life and eliminate the live markets that have played a role in the transmission of pandemic diseases like COVID-19.

In the United States, whether it’s litigating in the defense of endangered and threatened species, pressing the case for administrative rules to protect animals here and elsewhere or lobbying in support of positive legislation to guarantee the survival and flourishing of wildlife across the globe, we’re making the strongest possible commitments. We’re doing the same in other nations and through international treaties like CITES.

Currently, in the U.S. Congress, we’re supporting a number of measures designed to protect wild animals around the world and to eliminate threats to their survival. That includes a bill just introduced by Senators Chris Coons, D-Del., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the Eliminate, Neutralize, and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Reauthorization and Improvements Act of 2020, to reauthorize a key interagency task force that supports a comprehensive approach to global wildlife anti-poaching and anti-trafficking efforts, ramping up investments in enforcement, strategies to reduce consumer demand and online sales, and expanded global cooperation to confront the trade in animals and animal parts that is driving a number of wild species to the precipice of extinction.

We’ll say more about the Coons/Portman bill and other new measures in a few days, but for today, we’ll just say that they are emblematic of our overall philosophy and perspective which is to protect animals and to ensure their future.

Needless to say, Safari Club International has a very different approach, one it celebrates every year with a conference featuring high-bid auctions for the right to kill elephants, leopards, lions, giraffes, rhinos, bears, crocodiles and dozens of other embattled species worldwide. This week, however, SCI announced it was cancelling its 50th anniversary convention in Las Vegas due to COVID-19 concerns. The announcement stated that the ongoing pandemic had “made it impossible to conduct a successful event… or serve the greater good of wildlife conservation.”

The question we all ask ourselves is how can killing sentient, ecologically significant and often rare animals for bragging rights and wall hangings ever really “serve the greater good of wildlife conservation”? The resounding answer is that it doesn’t.

If SCI truly wanted to serve the greater good, it could go online with its event and use it to inform its supporters about opportunities to stem the tide of contemporary threats to wildlife and support authentic conservation efforts. There’s no shortage of threats and there’s always plenty to learn. The truth, however, is that the SCI annual conference is a lurid spectacle and rally for unbridled trophy hunting throughout the world. And when you think about it, if yours is the kind of organization that exists primarily to encourage a reckless, needless and widely disapproved pastime, with an annual conference that does little more than celebrate and auction off the right to kill endangered and threatened species for something as gruesome as a body part trophy, you’d be running a pretty serious risk if you went virtual.

If SCI wants to serve the greater good of wildlife conservation, it should join with us and other organizations in support of the numerous federal and state bills aimed at saving and protecting endangered wildlife worldwide. The inescapable conclusion is that SCI is not about conservation at all. But we are and we know you all are too.

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

Trump Taps Former Attorney Of Trophy Hunting Group For Key Wildlife Job

03/20/2020 12:20 EDT

Anna Seidman, a 20-year veteran of Safari Club International, has joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — an agency she’s sued several times.

• https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/safari-club-lawyer-fish-and-wildlife-international-affairs_n_5e73c372c5b6f5b7c540a3db?ncid=other_twitter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share_twitter

• By Chris D’Angelo, HuffPost US

The Trump administration has hired Anna Seidman, formerly a longtime lawyer at the trophy hunting advocacy group Safari Club International, to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s international affairs program.

A Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson confirmed Seidman’s appointment in a statement to HuffPost on Friday, calling her “an effective, innovative leader with 20 years of legal and policy experience, including expertise in international environment and natural resource management.”

The Safari Club has close ties to the administration ― its political action committee donated $11,000 to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign ― and is one of several groups that successfully lobbied Trump’s Interior Department to roll back prohibitions on importing the trophies of lions and elephants killed for sport in certain African countries.

Seidman was Safari Club’s top litigator for two decades and most recently served as director of its legal advocacy and international affairs arm, according to the organization’s website. In that role, she led several lawsuits against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, including challenging a 2015 Obama-era regulation that prohibited aggressive predator control tactics in national preserves and refuges in Alaska.

Seidman left Safari Club last year, according to her LinkedIn profile.

SCI Hunter Advocacy@SCI_Advocacy

That’s SCI’s Director of Hunter Advocacy, Anna Seidman, in the photo with @SecretaryZinke ! https://twitter.com/secretaryzinke/status/892866583504326658 …

Secretary Ryan Zinke

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Founded in 1972 and based in Washington, SCI is an advocacy group with more than 50,000 members that focuses on “protecting hunters’ rights and promoting wildlife conservation.” It has been criticized for giving out awards — with names like “Grand Slam African 29,” “African Big Five” and “Bears of the World” — to hunters who kill exotic and sometimes threatened species, including elephants, rhinos and polar bears.

SCI’s sister organization, Safari Club International Foundation, is a former client of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s. Bernhardt worked as a lobbyist for oil, gas and other special interests before joining the Trump administration.

As assistant director of FWS’s international affairs program, Seidman will lead a team responsible for implementing international conservation treaties and protecting at-risk wildlife populations and their habitats around the globe. She replaces Eric Alvarez, who has served as acting chief for two years.

SCI did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment Thursday.

SCI has been a major supporter of the Trump administration and its pro-hunting agenda. And under former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, the department made quick work of fulfilling trophy hunting groups’ wish list, as HuffPost previously reported.

In late 2017, the Interior Department came under fire when it lifted Obama-era bans on importing elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia ― a decision first made public by Safari Club. Facing public backlash, Trump suspended the department’s decision and condemned big-game trophy hunting as a “horror show.” A day later, SCI sent out a “call to arms,” in which the group encouraged hunters to complain to Trump and Zinke and blasted “hysterical anti-hunters and news media outlets.”

FWS subsequently issued a memo in March 2018 indicating it would consider permits to import trophies taken from elephants, lions and bontebok, a species of antelope, hunted in several African countries on a “case-by-case” basis. Later that year, Steven Chancellor, an Indiana coal executive who raised more than $1 million for Trump’s 2016 campaign and was then a member of the Department of the Interior’s advisory hunting council, obtained permits to import the heads and hides of at least three male lions from Africa.

Safari Club has been part of the revolving door at Trump’s Interior. Last July, Ben Cassidy, a former lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, left a high-ranking Interior post to to become Safari Club’s new director of government affairs. His departure from the Trump administration came less than three months he got wrapped up in a formal Interior Department ethics investigation.

Safari Club will probe sale of captive-bred lion hunts

BY MICHAEL BIESECKER ASSOCIATED PRESS

FEBRUARY 14, 2020 03:54 PM 

• https://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article240310161.html

This image from video provided by the Humane Society of the United States shows taxidermy at the Safari Club International’s 2020 annual convention, that was held Feb. 5-8, 2020, in Reno, Nevada. An undercover video recorded by animal welfare activists shows vendors at a recent trophy-hunting convention promoting trips to shoot captive-bred lions in Africa, despite past public assurances by the event’s organizers that so-called canned hunts wouldn’t be sold. (Humane Society of the United States via AP)

WASHINGTON

A trophy-hunting group says it has launched an ethics investigation following the release of undercover video showing vendors at its recent convention promoting trips to shoot captive-bred lions in Africa.

Safari Club International CEO W. Laird Hamberlin vowed swift action Friday to ensure exhibitors at the group’s annual convention “operate in full compliance with SCI’s policies.” The group had previously issued public assurances that so-called canned hunts wouldn’t be sold at its events.

“Under my leadership, this organization will take all necessary action to ensure that all of our partners adhere to the policies that are instrumental in making us First for Hunters,” Hamberlin said, referencing his organization’s slogan. “No matter where this investigation may take us, I can guarantee that SCI will identify and follow the right course of action to guarantee the integrity of our show, and adherence to our high standards for ethical hunting.”

Hamberlin’s statement comes after The Associated Press reported Wednesday on video footage collected last week by investigators for the Humane Society of the United States at SCI’s annual conference in Reno, Nevada. SCI’s yearly gatherings typically draw thousands of attendees and hundreds of vendors selling firearms, overseas safari trips and items made from the skins and bones of rare wildlife.

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In the video, three safari tour operators can be clearly heard confirming the lions to be shot on the trips were bred in captivity. Typically, the lions used in such canned hunts are raised in cages and small pens before being released into a larger fenced enclosure. Once reaching young adulthood, customers pay to shoot them and keep the skins, skulls, claws and other body parts for trophies.

“They’re bred in captivity. They’re born in captivity, and then they’re released,” a salesman for Bush Africa Safaris, a South African tour operator, says on the video. “There’s guys who are going to tell you something different on the floor, they’re going to bulls—t you, that is what it is.”

SCI issued a policy in 2018 opposing the hunting of African lions bred in captivity, which the group said is of doubtful value to the conservation of lions in the wild. After the Humane Society captured video of canned hunts being sold at the SCI convention last year, SCI issued a statement pledging not to accept advertising from any operator selling such hunts, nor allow their sale in the vendor booths rented out at its 2020 convention.

As part of SCI’s statement sent to AP on Friday, Hamberlin suggested without offering any specific evidence that the Humane Society had selectively edited the videos it released. He challenged the animal welfare group to provide SCI with its raw, unedited videos from the Reno convention.

SCI’s statement also said that the vendors caught on video selling canned hunts would also be provided an opportunity to tell their side of the story.

“The vendors who attend SCI’s Convention every year are a crucial component to the organization’s overall role as the leading advocate for hunters and they too have the right to a fair and transparent process with the opportunity to defend their business against allegations that may be entirely baseless,” the group’s statement said.

Anna Frostic, an attorney for The Humane Society, said Friday her group had not received any sort of direct request for video from SCI, but pointed to publicly available links of sound bites and extended footage gathered at the conference.

“The video footage we have that is relevant to what we found at the SCI convention regarding captive lion hunting is freely available online,” Frostic said.

___

Follow Associated Press Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck

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This image from video provided by the Humane Society of the United States shows taxidermy at the Safari Club International’s 2020 annual convention, that was held Feb. 5-8, 2020, in Reno, Nevada. An undercover video recorded by animal welfare activists shows vendors at a recent trophy-hunting convention promoting trips to shoot captive-bred lions in Africa, despite past public assurances by the event’s organizers that so-called canned hunts wouldn’t be sold. An avid hunter, Donald Trump Jr. was among the featured speakers at the SCI convention last weekend. (Humane Society of the United States via AP)

At SCI convention, trophy hunters rub shoulders with Donald Trump Jr…

At SCI convention, trophy hunters rub shoulders with Donald Trump Jr. and USFWS director; undercover investigation reveals potentially illegal sales of elephant, stingray, hippo skins

By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson

February 12, 2020 0 Comments

This is not an event most people would want to frequent. In addition to the vendors carrying out a callous trade in animal lives, everywhere you look were the stuffed carcasses of lions, Cape buffalo, bears, wolves, mountain lions and leopards. Photo by the HSUS

https://blog.humanesociety.org/2020/02/at-sci-convention-trophy-hunters-rub-shoulders-with-donald-trump-jr-and-usfws-director-undercover-investigation-reveals-potentially-illegal-sales-of-elephant-stingray-hippo-skins.html?credit=blog_post_021220_id11200

At the Safari Club International’s annual convention each year, wealth, privilege and power come together with a revolting goal: mowing down the world’s rarest and most beloved wildlife. This year’s event in Reno was no different. Trophy hunters heard speeches from guest of honor Donald Trump Jr. and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Director Aurelia Skipwith, shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to kill endangered rhinos, lions and polar bears, and kicked back to the music of the Beach Boys.

But, as our undercover investigators who were on site discovered, there were potentially illegal goings-on at the event as well. Exhibitors peddled boots and belts made with elephant, hippo and stingray skins in what appears to be a violation of Nevada’s law on wildlife trafficking. The state forbids trade in the body parts and products of these endangered and threatened animals.

Customers could also get accessories made to order with the animal skins, some dyed in garish colors. The going rate for giraffe skin boots was nearly $1,400 and kangaroo skin boots were nearly $1,100.

It wasn’t just dead animal parts on sale. The lives of 860 animals were auctioned off at the four-day event. As you can see in our undercover footage, vendors glibly offered canned lion hunts, where trophy hunters can pick out and kill defenseless animals bred in captivity with nowhere to run. Also on offer was a $6,000 hunt for any six animals that a customer can choose to kill in South Africa, including zebras, wildebeest, warthogs, impalas, hartebeest, gemsbok, nyala and waterbuck. A polar bear hunt in Canada was offered for $35,000.

Vendors glibly offered canned lion hunts, where trophy hunters can pick out and kill defenseless animals bred in captivity with nowhere to run.

Also on offer: a critically endangered black rhino hunt for $350,000, and an Asiatic black bear hunt in Russia for $15,000, among others. There even was a “Trump special” for $25,000 to kill buffalo, sable, roan and crocodiles. An outfitter peddling a giraffe hunt told our investigator the hunt costs “only” $1,200 because they have “too many giraffes” and need to “get rid of the animals.” This at a time when the United States is considering listing the giraffe under the Endangered Species Act and two giraffe subspecies were recently listed as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

By the time the convention wrapped up on Saturday, two winners had paid a total of $340,000 for a “dream hunt” on a luxury yacht in Alaska with Trump Jr. to kill back-tailed deer and sea ducks.

The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International send undercover investigators to the convention each year so that we can shine a global spotlight on this grisly world. As you can see from our video footage, this is not an event most people would want to frequent. In addition to the vendors carrying out a callous trade in animal lives, everywhere you look are the stuffed carcasses of lions, Cape buffalo, bears, wolves, mountain lions and leopards. This year’s displays included an ibex mountain goat killed by Trump Jr. On the walls are portraits of hunters grinning alongside their kills or posing proudly holding open the mouths of the dead animals.

[Read the full investigation report ]

Many of these species on offer for the killing already face multiple threats from poachers or are falling victim to climate change and habitat loss. But for the SCI and its members, the rarer the animals are, the greater the thrill of killing them.

Fortunately, the tide is turning as Americans lose their patience with the havoc trophy hunters wreak on our planet. Earlier this week we announced that in response to a lawsuit brought by the HSUS and HSI, the Trump administration shut down a sham trophy hunters’ panel that was advising the government on wildlife trade policy. Last month, a Canadian chapter of SCI was forced to shut down its auction for an elephant hunt in Botswana—the first since the country reopened trophy hunting elephants last year. Attendance at the SCI convention itself is dropping each year. And increasingly, Americans and people the world over are sharing their disgust of trophy hunters and their exploits on social media.

We look forward to the day when we won’t have to send our investigators to the SCI convention, because there won’t be one. But until that day comes, our fight to stop industry groups like the SCI will continue. American trophy hunters kill more endangered and threatened animals around the globe than hunters anywhere in the world, and we will hold them to account. We are pushing for Congress to pass two bills, the CECIL Act and ProTECT Act, that would rein in trophy imports of such species from overseas. No one needs to decorate their walls with the heads and hides of endangered or other at-risk animals, and it’s time we, as a nation, stop this unnecessary killing for good.

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

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No good vibrations for Beach Boys, split by hunting concert

One of the co-founders of The Beach Boys has joined a boycott of his own music to protest it being used by another member at an animal hunting convention

By

The Associated Press

February 4, 2020, 12:36 PM

2 min read

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/good-vibrations-beach-boys-split-hunting-concert-68753161

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Beach Boys’ Mike Love on meeting Charles Manson through Dennis Wilson“We were invited by Dennis to come to dinner to meet Charlie and the family,” Mike Love recalled.The Associated Press

NEW YORK — One of the co-founders of The Beach Boys has joined a boycott of his own music to protest it being used by another band member at an animal hunting convention.

Brian Wilson has denounced a performance of Beach Boys music on Wednesday at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, Nevada. The concert is being led by The Beach Boys’ co-founder, lead singer and chief lyricist Mike Love.

In a tweet, Wilson said he and band member Al Jardine are “emphatically opposed” to trophy hunting. He then pointed to a Change.org petition that calls for a boycott of Beach Boys’ music until the performance is canceled. The petition had garnered more than 100,000 signatures by Tuesday afternoon.

The annual Safari Club convention has drawn protests by animal rights groups such as the Humane Society of the United States for profiting from the hunting of endangered animals and promoting unethical hunting practices. This year’s keynote speaker is Donald Trump Jr.

In response, Love offered a statement to Pitchfork magazine: “We look forward to a night of great music in Reno and, as always, support freedom of thought and expression as a fundamental tenet of our rights as Americans.”

The Beach Boys are known for sunny harmonies in such songs as “California Girls,” I Get Around,” “Fun Fun Fun,” “Good Vibrations” and “Kokomo.”

Trophy Hunters Can Bid for a Chance to Kill Deer With ‘Accomplished Conservationist’ Donald Trump Jr.

He accidentally shot an endangered species in Mongolia last summer.

• PATRICK GREENF

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https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/02/trophy-hunters-can-bid-for-a-chance-to-kill-deer-with-accomplished-conservationist-donald-trump-jr/

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A Sitka black-tailed deer.Michael Penn/AP

This piece was originally published in the Guardian and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership.

A week-long “dream hunt” with the US president’s son Donald Trump Jr. is being auctioned at an annual trophy hunting convention in Reno, Nevada, alongside expeditions to shoot elephants, bears and giraffes.

The four-day event organized by Safari Club International (SCI) and advertised as a “hunters’ heaven,” will culminate on Saturday with an auction for a week-long Sitka black-tailed deer hunt in Alaska with Trump Jr., his son, and a guide. At the time of writing, bidding for the yacht-based expedition stands at $10,000.

Other prizes include the chance to shoot an elephant on a 14-day trip in Namibia, an all-inclusive hunt package to Zimbabwe to kill buffalo, giraffe and wildebeest, and a 10-day crocodile hunting expedition in South Africa. The proceeds from the auction, which campaigners say could exceed $5 million, will fund SCI’s “hunter advocacy and wildlife conservation efforts,” according to the organization.

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Thousands of hunters from around the world are expected to attend the convention which begins on Wednesday, where Trump Jr., an avid trophy hunter, is set to give a keynote address.

“This year we will be featuring Donald Trump Jr., a man who needs no introduction, and whose passion for the outdoors makes him the number one ambassador for our way of life.”

The description of the auction prize states: “This year we will be featuring Donald Trump Jr., a man who needs no introduction, and whose passion for the outdoors makes him the number one ambassador for our way of life.

“Don Jr. shares this heritage with his son,” the description continues, “and believes in handing down these lessons to young hunters. Don Jr. and his son will be hosting this year’s hunt along with Keegan [the guide] in Alaska.”

It comes just weeks after ProPublica revealed Trump Jr. killed a rare species of endangered sheep during a hunting trip to Mongolia last summer.

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Last week, anti-hunting campaigners condemned the annual SCI convention, and Brian Wilson and Al Jardine backed a boycott of their former band the Beach Boys, who are scheduled to appear at the event.

Kitty Block, president and CEO of  he the Humane Society of the United States, said: “This annual event is the largest meeting in the world of people who celebrate the senseless killing, buying and selling of dead animals for bragging rights.

“As our planet suffers an extinction crisis, it is business as usual for the trophy hunting industry and SCI, who continue to revel in spending millions of dollars every year to destroy imperiled wildlife,” she said.

SCI hit back at the criticisms and called them the “height of hypocrisy,” arguing that hunting makes enormous contributions to conservation and described Trump Jr. as “an accomplished conservationist.”

The regulations around importing hunting trophies has been loosened under Donald Trump, though he has previously described the practice as a “horror show” despite his sons’ affection for big-game hunting. In 2018 the administration moved to make it easier to import trophies from exotic big-game animals such as elephants and lions.

Brian Wilson wants fans to boycott Beach Boys over show at hunting event with Donald Trump Jr.

The touring group is set to perform this week at Safari Club International’s annual convention in Nevada.

Brian Wilson performs the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ at Lulworth Castle in Wareham, England, on July 30, 2017.Rob Ball / Getty Images file

Feb. 3, 2020, 7:23 PM PST

By Tim Stelloh

Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson is asking fans to boycott the band he helped start because of a coming performance at a hunting event in Nevada.

In a tweet Monday, Wilson said there was nothing he could do to stop the concert Wednesday at Safari Club International’s annual convention in Reno, Nevada, which will feature the touring group led by co-founder Mike Love. The group’s convention will also include a keynote speech Saturday by Donald Trump Jr.

Brian Wilson

✔@BrianWilsonLive

This organization supports trophy hunting, which Both Al and I are emphatically opposed to. There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition at https://www.change.org/p/beach-boys-stop-supporting-trophy-hunting …

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Wilson linked to an online petition calling on fans to stop buying the group’s music and attending shows because of Safari Club’s support of trophy hunting, which he said he and Al Jardine, another co-founder of the band, are “emphatically opposed” to.

Safari Club has made the contested claim that trophy hunting is the “solution” to conserving Africa’s wildlife.

Animal rights activists have described the group’s annual convention as one of the world’s largest gatherings for trophy hunters and a celebration of the “senseless killing” of hundreds of animals.

Representatives for Love did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump Jr. — as well as his brother Eric Trump — are well-known hunters. Photos from 2012 showed the pair posing over the carcasses of several animals in Zimbabwe. In December, ProPublica reported that he traveled to Mongolia to hunt an endangered argali sheep.

According to a convention program, tickets to Trump’s speech cost $135 per person. Tickets for the Beach Boys are $115 each.

Wilson founded the Beach Boys in 1961 with two brothers and Love, his cousin. Before suffering a breakdown in 1964, he wrote such iconic hits as “Surfin’ USA” and “I Get Around.” He later wrote the band’s celebrated album “Pet Sounds” but struggled for decades with drugs and mental illness.

Wilson toured with the group sporadically from the 1960s to the 1990s, but the original surviving members have toured together only once since 1965, to celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2012. Wilson has released several albums as a solo artist.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/brian-wilson-wants-fans-boycott-beach-boys-over-show-hunting-n1129386

860 animal lives on offer at trophy hunters’ Reno convention; elephants, wolves, leopards and black bears in peril

January 31, 2020 0 Comments

https://blog.humanesociety.org/2020/01/860-animal-lives-on-offer-at-trophy-hunters-reno-convention-elephants-wolves-leopards-and-black-bears-in-peril.html?credit=blog_em_013120_id11169&utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=humanenation&fbclid=IwAR1cntklLL2CW-ogtzpqwecaD4LL5V5VqIVtH1KIdiv41wWmXHWuGilO25Q

Trophy hunters often hold out the false claim that their work helps wildlife conservation and local people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Photo by the HSUS

Next Wednesday, trophy hunters with a yen for slaying some of the world’s most endangered and threatened animals will gather in Reno, Nevada, for the annual Safari Club International convention.

This is perhaps one of the world’s largest such gatherings, and it’s a grim affair. On offer will be more than 300 trophy hunts here in the United States and abroad, with starting bids ranging from $1,650 to $100,000 each. By the time the convention wraps up on Feb. 8, at least 860 animals, including black bears, wolves, leopards and elephants, will be condemned to die.

Peddling off one of those animal lives will be Donald Trump, Jr., a trophy hunter himself who was recently in the news for killing an argali sheep, an animal protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, during a trip to Mongolia. Trump Jr. will auction off a black-tailed deer hunt in Alaska for a starting bid of $17,000.

The convention is expected to rake in $5 million for the SCI. Meanwhile, the methods of killing trophy hunters employ are becoming more gruesome every year. Among the vendors at the convention this year is HHK Safaris, which describes itself as “Africa’s largest safari operator.” This outfitter has been the subject of recent media coverage for shooting leopards in the legs ahead of time so trophy hunters can go in and make a certain kill: a practice known as “kneecapping”.

At last year’s convention, vendors offering captive-bred lion hunts hawked the majestic animals as if they were pieces of furniture. The price of a lion hunt was largely determined by the size of the animal and his mane, ranging from “budget” to “deluxe.” One attendee bragged that he and his children participated in a canned hunt, killing a lion within 90 minutes. A hunt operator attempting to make a sale offered to bait lions with meat ahead of the trophy hunter’s arrival, to save time.

Trophy hunters often hold out the false claim that their work helps wildlife conservation and local people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Studies show that hardly any of the money from trophy hunting actually trickles down to local people in the range nations. And the rarer the animal, the more trophy hunters prize it, which means they often end up decimating populations of animals that are already struggling to survive. Our analysis of SCI’s “Record Book” for 2015 showed SCI members have killed mindboggling numbers of endangered and at-risk animals, including at least 2,007 African lions, 1,888 African leopards, 791 African elephants and 572 critically endangered black rhinos, among other animals.

People around the globe are increasingly becoming aware of this needless killing of the world’s precious wildlife and are voicing their objection. Recently we reported how an SCI chapter in Calgary, Canada, was forced to call off its planned auction of the first elephant trophy hunt in Botswana in seven years following local protests. Trump Jr.’s trophy hunt of the argali sheep was met with shock by large numbers of Americans and HSUS and HSI have urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to not allow the import of that trophy. Last week, music group REO Speedwagon pulled out of their scheduled performance at the SCI convention.

These are promising signs for our cause, and it is also encouraging that attendance at the convention has been dwindling year after year. In a world in which a million species are fast disappearing because of direct exploitation, climate change, habitat loss and poaching, no one has the patience anymore to indulge trophy hunters and their killing of wildlife for fun.

Donald Trump Jr to speak at world’s largest trophy hunt convention

Chris Riotta

,

The Independent•January 29, 2020

Donald Trump Jr’s gun was adorned with the US flag and a label reading: ‘Made in USA’: Donald Trump Jr

Donald Trump Jr, an avid trophy hunter who has been accused of killing an endangered animal under controversial circumstances, will speak at the world’s largest trophy hunting convention in Nevada next week, according to reports.

The first son and top campaign surrogate to Donald Trump was set to attend the Safari Club International’s annual three-day convention in Reno, Nevada, where he was scheduled to speak on 8 February.

In addition to the speech, Mr Trump Jr also planned to sell a trophy hunting trip with him in Alaska.

For $17,000 (£13,067), attendees of the convention can bid to hunt black-tailed deer native to the region with him, according to Safari Club International.

Other features of the event include an estimated 870 exhibits selling everything from animal heads to hides, as well as 300 hunting trip opportunities across the country, with bids ranging between $1,650 (£1,268) and $100,000 (£76,860).

The Humane Society of the United States slammed the upcoming convention in a statement that said: “This annual event is the largest meeting in the world of people who celebrate the senseless killing, buying and selling of dead animals for bragging rights.”

“As our planet suffers an extinction crisis, it is business as usual for the trophy hunting industry and SCI, who continue to revel in spending millions of dollars every year to destroy imperilled wildlife.”

News of Mr Trump Jr attending the event comes after it was reported late last year that he received special treatment during a trip to Mongolia, where he allegedly shot and killed an endangered argali, the largest sheep in the world.

Mr Trump Jr retroactively received a rare permit allowing him to kill the animal during his hunting trip to the country in August 2019, according to ProPublica. That permit was reportedly issued in September, after he had already left the country.

The event also follows attempts by Mr Trump’s White House to roll back protections for endangered wildlife worldwide, including providing the first trophy import permit for a lion trophy from Tanzania.

Story continues

https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-jr-speak-world-180345088.html