US organisation to auction SA big 5 hunts

Safari Club International (SCI) aims at South Africa’s endangered wildlife. Picture: Youtube.

Safari Club International (SCI) aims at South Africa’s endangered wildlife. Picture: Youtube.

Published Feb 1, 2017

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Safari Club International (SCI), America’s most powerful hunting lobby group, will  auction the lives of 280 South African animals to raise funds to lobby the Trump Administration against measures protects threatened species like elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo and leopard.

At a trophy hunting convention that SCI is hosting in Las Vegas this week, the hunting lobby group expects the estimated 25,000 hunters to bid on at least 60 South African hunting trips. Apart from the Big 5, American hunters are offered the chance to kill all of South Africa’s iconic species. Successful bidders will be able  to shoot giraffe, hippo, zebra, baboon, wildebeest, sable antelope, warthog, greater kudu, impala, springbok, blesbok, caracal, African wildcat, with 119 other animals proffered as ‘upgrades’ for an additional cost.

The South Africa hunts are valued at US$1.01 million, from an estimated total of US$5,3 million from other hunts on auction, which include the hunting of some 1,000 mammals internationally, including highly endangered polar bears.

All profits from the trophy hunts will go directly toward funding SCI to actively lobby the U.S. government towards a pro-hunting stance. The group will to wield considerable influence on the Trump Administration, especially the Department of the Interior, which manages natural resources.

With the new administration under Donald Trump, SCI’s influence is set to increase even further.

“We are worried that with the new U.S. administration in power, pro-trophy hunting advocacy groups like SCI will have undue negative influence on key wildlife conservation issues,” says Masha Kalinina, International Trade Policy Specialist at the Wildlife Department of Humane Society International. “This is why it’s troubling that the lives of innocent South African mammals are helping finance this agenda far across the globe,” she said

President Donald Trump’s sons – Donald Jr. and Eric – are both avid trophy hunters and images of their African safari kills angered conservationists and wildlife-lovers.

SCI also heavily influences government policies to a number of African nations.

In 2010, SCI forced Namibia to reverse its ban on leopard and cheetah hunting while a similar scenario occurred in Zambia when the powerful lobby group persuaded the Zambian government to reverse their ban on hunting lions and leopards.

In September 2015, SCI and other pro-hunting organizations met behind closed doors with the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and representatives of other African nations in Polokwane to discuss the ‘benefits’ of trophy hunting. Journalists and non-hunting conservation groups were barred access from the meeting, which generated suspicion as to the exact involvement of SCI with the DEA.

This week, as part of the online auction, there will be two South African hunts valued at US$16,500 and US$15,000 each – from Thaba Mmoyo Safaris and Melody Safaris – that offer to hunt wildlife with dogs, a controversial practice known as “hounding” where an animal is chased until exhausted, trapped, and easily shot. One auction from Watts Trophy Hunting offers an upgrade to kill an elephant and an African lion. Extremely high levels of poaching are already endangering both species and hunting them will only exacerbate the problem.

Most controversially, some of the auctions offer canned hunting – the cruel practice in which animals are hunted within a fenced area without any opportunity to escape.

“It’s time to bust the myth that killing for kicks helps conservation in any significant way at all, it simply doesn’t,” explains Kalinina, “by allowing U.S. hunters to kill South Africa’s iconic species, South Africa is boosting the coffers of a powerful U.S. organisation that instead threatens global wildlife. The South African public should be seriously concerned.”

Humane Society International is calling on South African citizens to oppose callous killing of wildlife for entertainment by signing a pledge to end trophy hunting .

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