VICTORY LAP Latest news about FoA's advocacy and achievements

VICTORY LAP

BY NICOLE RIVARD AND FRAN SILVERMAN

FOA SUES DOI TO RELEASE NAMES OF U.S. TROPHY HUNTERS AND IMPORTERS The key federal agency that oversees the imports of elephants, giraffes, lions and other hunted threatened and vulnerable species is refusing to release the names of U.S. residents who are receiving the trophies and body parts, a violation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), FoA’s Wildlife Law Program said in filings. Earlier this year, FoA filed FOIA requests with the federal Department of the Interior seeking information on the numbers of elephant skins and giraffe parts being imported into the U.S., including the names of the importers.

Just 350,000 elephants remain in Africa. Yet, despite the dwindling population of African elephants, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the U.S. is a major importer of elephant parts and products, exceeding other countries. In 2016, the U.S. imported 2,079 whole African elephant skins, up from 275 two years before.

In an effort to protect African elephants, FoA has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to amend the ESA to include greater restrictions on the trade of elephant skins and other body parts and it has sought data on the numbers and kinds of skin imports coming into the U.S. Similarly, African giraffes are also in danger of being wiped out, with just 97,500 remaining in Africa, a drop from 150,000 in 1985. In 2016, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) elevated the threat level of giraffes two categories to “vulnerable to extinction.” Giraffes are already gone from seven countries in Africa, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Guinea, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria and Senegal.

Yet giraffes currently have no protection under U.S. law. And like with elephants, the U.S. is a major importer of giraffe parts and derivatives. Between 2006 and 2016, the U.S. imported 21,402 bone carvings, 3,008 skin pieces and 3, 744 hunting trophies. Who is getting these parts, however, remains under wraps because the federal Department of the Interior (DOI) is withholding the names of hundreds of the importers.

FoA appealed the withholding of the names and filed a lawsuit in federal court against DOI when the agency didn’t answer FoA’s appeal in the proper time frame. FoA is also supporting efforts by animal protection groups that have requested that FWS list extend ESA protections to giraffes.

In 2018, an FoA investigation that included a FOIA request into U.S. trophy hunters revealed that more than half the hunters who received permits to bring back lion parts from Africa donated to the

4 | Friends of Animals Republicans or were connected to Safari Club International. Included in the list of hunters who received permits was Indiana resident Steven Chancellor, who raised more than $1 million for Republican candidates at a fundraiser at this home in 2016 headlined by Donald Trump. Once he became President, Trump’s administration eased restrictions on U.S. trophy hunters. An earlier investigation by FoA also found that FWS had quietly issued 16 individual permits authorizing the import of sport-hunted elephant trophies from Zimbabwe before announcing to the public in November that it was lifting its ban on hunting of elephants in that country.

“Transparency is critical to our ability to protect these endangered animals and to our democracy. The public deserves to know if the government is granting permits based on scientific information or if improper political influences may be at play,’’ said Jennifer Best, assistant director of FoA’s Wildlife Law Program. “There is no justification for withholding this information.”

The Supreme Court has stated that FOIA establishes a strong presumption in favor of disclosure, and Congress has affirmed these tenants, WLP noted in its appeals. The guiding principal of FOIA is the public’s fundamental right to know. The law favors disclosure, not secrecy.

NY MOVES CLOSER TO BANNING TROPHY HUNTING OF AFRICA’S BIG 5 In June, the New York state Senate, voting 48 to 14, banned the importation, sale, possession and transportation of Africa’s Big 5—elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos and giraffes— and their body parts in New York.

The Big 5 African Trophies Act, drafted by Friends of Animals, now has to pass the Assembly, where it is cosponsored by Linda Rosenthal. If you live in New York please call your Assembly member and tell he or she to support A7556. You can find your Assembly members here: nyassembly. gov/mem/.

“The Safari Club International is throwing its considerable dead weight around and emptying its coffers to kill the bill, so we must outwork and outpace them with a multitude of appeals to Assembly members to pass the historic legislation,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals.

In Connecticut, the state Senate, voting 32-4, also passed the legislation. But it was not raised for a vote in the House.

New York, which is the busiest port of entry for wildlife trophies, should be proud to be on the right side of history.

“Banning the continued importation, possession, sale and transportation of the Big African Five is essential in ensuring their survival,” said state Senator Luis Sepulveda, who sponsored the legislation in the Senate. “Without this legislation, we are endangering these species and condoning poaching, a terrible and heinous act against our animals. It is unconscionable to take part in the extinction of a species, especially at a time when our environment faces so many threats, and therefore, we are very proud to have passed this legislation.”

This is monumental news that comes on the heels of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially considering listing the giraffe as an endangered species, a move long sought by wildlife advocates alarmed by their precipitous decline and a growing domestic market for giraffe products. However, it could take years before the U.S. gives them any protections.

Shockingly, in the last four years, 443 giraffe trophies and products made from their parts came into designated ports in New Jersey and New York, according to data from a Freedom of Information Request filed by Friends of Animals.

And recently, the government of Botswana announced elephant hunt

VICTORY LAP

ing will resume after a five-year prohibition, despite intense lobbying by some conservation advocates to continue the ban. FOA STEPS IN TO STOP FWS FROM DELISTING BELOVED SONGBIRD While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) dallied in designating critical habitat for the threatened yellow-billed cuckoo, the situation for the beloved songbirds worsened. Climate change and habitat degradation have led to serious population declines. But instead of stepping up efforts to protect these tiny long-tailed birds that were listed as threatened in 2014, FWS has now indicated it may strip them of their Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing, prompting Friends of Animals' Wildlife Law Program (WLP) to once again step in to protect them.

FoA along with WildEarth Guardians filed comments with FWS in June calling on the federal agency to rely on scientific studies and verified reports as required by law and not just citizen science when evaluating data about the need to protect a species.

Yellow-billed cuckoos have been on the decline since the mid-1800s and breeding cuckoos have been extirpated over much of their midwestern range. Once common from Seattle to Arizona, the western cuckoos have disappeared completely from the Pacific Northwest. Dams, livestock grazing and conversion of flood plains for agriculture have encroached on their riparian environs. Development along rivers has destroyed as much of 90 percent of the birds’ habitat and loss of insect prey from pesticides along with draught and climate change have also threatened their survival.

This spring, FoA won a lawsuit requiring FWS to designate critical habitat for the birds—as mandated by an ESA listing—by August. But now FWS has indicated it may delist the birds all together.

“The short-sighted interests of some in the ranching and mining industries are pressuring this administration to delist this remarkable songbird,” said Jennifer Best, WLP assistant director. “If their political wishes win out over the needs of the western yellow-billed cuckoo, then they will continue to exploit riparian habitat desperately needed by the last remaining yellowbilled cuckoos. Protection under the ESA is critical to the survival of the songbird and valuable river ecosystems.”

A coalition of mainly cattle ranching and mining interests asked the FWS to remove ESA protections from the cuckoo in 2017.

“The claims in the delisting petition are unreliable and unsound,” said Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians.

“The best available science indicates that these rare birds are still declining and in need of protection.”

FOA FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST BLM FOR ITS ATTEMPT TO WIPE OUT OREGON’S WILD HORSES Friends of Animals filed a lawsuit in June against the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its decision to not return 779 of the wild horses it rounded up from the Warm Springs Herd Management Area (HMA) in Oregon last October. Adding insult to injury, the BLM in the decision admitted that 66 wild horses were “not excess” but granted itself discretion to imprison those horses indefinitely and set in motion a plan to administer fertility control or spay any mares who it decides to return.

FoA is also challenging the decision’s new rule that virtually eliminates critical public participation in considerations about how to manage these and other wild horses in the future.

“The latest decision leaves the Warm Spring wild horse herd well below any population size of effective breeding animals that BLM has recommended in past decisions,” said Michael Harris, director of FoA’s Wildlife Law Program. “Between the massive reduction in total population size and the decision to utilize birth control agents, like the pesticide PZP, the Warm Springs herd will no longer be a viable self-sustaining population as required by law. BLM will literally be managing this herd to extinction.” BLM has failed miserably at liv

ing up to its legal obligation to wild horses, but what is about to occur to the horses who for generations have made their home within the Warm Springs HMA, amounts to a complete repudiation of the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burro Act of 1971, the lawsuit states.

Speaking of breaking the law, the new rule was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). BLM failed to provide the public notice of the new rule before implementing it, nor did BLM solicit comments on the new rule as required by the APA. Finally, BLM failed to acknowledge or offer a reasonable explanation for the rule change, the lawsuit states. The new rule directs BLM to eliminate public participation for each roundup by issuing a single decision to cover multiple years and removing the requirement for National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) analysis when implementing longterm plans. According to the new rule, if BLM issues a multi-year or open-ended wild horse and burro management decision, then no further NEPA analysis is required to continue implementing actions impacting wild horses.

“This is a stark change from BLM’s long-standing decision to provide public participation in most onthe-ground roundup activities, not just on broad, long-term management decisions,” Harris said.

For decades now, the public has played an important role in assuring that (1) BLM is fully informed about the potential ramifications to the horses from its proposed management decisions and (2) that the courts act as a check to prevent bad decisions that do not pass legal muster from going into effect, the lawsuit states.

“This overall decision may be BLM’s preferred model for wild horses moving forward, but it is downright criminal and morally reprehensible,” Harris said.

The BLM’s artificially low appropriate management level for the Warm Springs herd is a measly 96- 178 wild horses plus 15-24 burros. However, 6,134 cattle are allowed to graze in the West Warm Springs and East Warm Springs grazing allotments, which are located in the Warm Springs HMA. CT SENATE EMBRACES COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO BLACK BEARS We are cheering the Connecticut state senators who in the spring voted against an egregious nuisance wildlife bill that would have incentivized killing black bears and other wildlife without requiring residents to take any responsible non-lethal steps to prevent conflict.

The bill, SB 586, started out as legislation to allow a bear hunt in Litchfield County. Substitute language revising it allowed any owner or lessee of property in the state to designate a hunter who has received a permit from DEEP to kill wildlife deemed a nuisance to farm animals, bees and chickens at any time of day and night. Friends of Animals, whose headquarters are in CT, lobbied against the bill and applauds our members who reached out to their state lawmakers to vote it down.

Under the bill, hunters who get paid as designated permittees to kill wildlife could have also kept the dead animals for commercial sale or private use, thus making it very lucrative to kill the animals.

The state has not held a black bear hunt since the mid-1800s because hunting had all but wiped out the population.

We’re glad state senators opted instead for the logical, reasonable and humane legislation that requires the state to study non-lethal management methods.

The best way to mitigate human-bear conflict is for the state to require bear resistant garbage cans and electric fencing around bee colonies and farm animals and to increase educational outreach.

“The Senators who voted against this bill saw through the veiled attempt by hunters to promote legislation that essentially would have approved a trophy hunt of bears and other wildlife, yet would not have resolved the very problems voiced by farmers and residents,’’ Friends of Animals President Priscilla Feral said. “If you kill a bear or coyote, another hungry one will be right behind them if proper measures aren’t taken to avoid conflict.”