Dr. Peter Thomas
Division of Management Authority
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Department of the Interior
4401 North Fairfax Dr.
Room 700
Arlington, VA 22203

BY EMAIL: ManagementAuthority@fws.gov

REF: Federal Register notice on Draft Policy for Enhancement-of-Survival Permits for Foreign Species under the Endangered Species Act; Vol. 68, No. 159, Monday, August 18, 2003.

Dear Dr. Thomas:

          The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) is strongly opposed to the above-referenced notice in the Federal Register and urges the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to withdraw this misguided proposal without delay.

As the Administration is well aware, the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of, if not the, strongest wildlife protection laws in the world.  It has been implemented for three decades to stem the dramatic decline of threatened and endangered wildlife with great success.  The ESA also wisely prohibits the importation and / or commercialization of endangered species that are native to foreign countries.  This vital provision ensures that the American public does not contribute to the decimation of endangered species in the wild.

If this proposed policy shift is implemented, it only will benefit consumptive use industries such as leather manufacturers, zoos, circuses, and trophy hunters – those who stand to profit most by the capture and killing of wildlife – while imperiling wildlife globally and undermining the ESA. The FWS should implement the ESA to conserve threatened and endangered species and the ecosystems on which they depend.  The FWS should not implement the ESA in an effort to accommodate consumptive wildlife-related industries in the United States.

The proposal to allow importation of endangered species as well as their parts or products made from them is incredibly vague.  For instance, the notice refers to “incentives to encourage conservation” without specifically outlining what these incentives are or how the FWS has determined that these alleged incentives will contribute effectively to these species’ conservation in the wild. 

A further example of the inexact language is the concept that importation of foreign endangered species will occur in “some limited situations.”  What qualifies as “limited”?  AWI believes that the language of Section 10 of the ESA already provides for exemptions to the import prohibition.  These are the only limited situations for which such import should be allowed. The FWS has been implementing this provision effectively and there is no need to broaden the exemption language. 

As well, the Notice concludes that implementing this drastic policy shift “could encourage proactive conservation.”  What does “encourage” mean?  Is this short-term or long-term conservation?  And the Service acknowledges that this shift “could” encourage conservation. By definition this means that the policy ought to encourage conservation, but it not necessarily will. If the policy fails in this regard, as AWI and many others are convinced it will, the price paid will be remarkably high and certain species would see their downward spiral toward extinction exacerbated drastically.

Whereas the FWS suggests that “listing under the ESA may provide few, if any, additional benefits” to the conservation of foreign endangered species, the ESA is, quite the contrary, a crucial tool in this regard.  The United States is one of the largest consumers of wildlife and wildlife products on the planet.  Closing our market to this trade reduces the incentive to capture or kill these animals for export to our marketplace.  Once the message goes out that the United States is a new, accessible market for these animals, a price will be placed on each and every one of their heads and poachers will set out to profit by commerce in these species.

Does the FWS really intend to facilitate the trophy hunting of tigers in Asia or capture of orangutans in Indonesia, for instance, and call such a commercial enterprise “conservation”?  The specific examples used by the Service in its notice are troubling themselves.  There are approximately 1,500 markhor left in the wild, yet the Service would open this fragile population up to hunting pressure.  Any offtake of a population that small may have dooming consequences for the remaining animals.  Age and sex ratios may be skewed by killing even the smallest number of these animals, such that eventual recovery of the species is prevented.

In another example, the Service has absolutely missed the basic points surrounding conservation of the Asian elephant.  To begin with, the FWS should not put itself in the role of trying to facilitate the importation of endangered Asian elephants to prop up the zoo and circus industries.  There are serious questions about the ability of these facilities to breed and humanely maintain elephants in captivity and ensure their long-term viability in a captive environment.   Furthermore, Asian elephants should not be referred to blithely as “surplus” animals, merely because there are instances of human-elephant conflict.  Such problems arise as a result of expanding human populations and insurrection into areas of historical elephant habitat.  More importantly, the FWS and its proposed changes to the implementation of the ESA afford no real relief for these problems.  Importing endangered Asian elephants will not improve the conditions for breeding and maintaining elephants in captivity in the United States.  It will, however, necessarily weaken an already fragile wild population.  It will not solve conflicts between wildlife and humans in Asia.  It will, however, increase the likelihood that humans will target elephants for capture and export strictly as a profitable enterprise with no view to conservation of the species in the wild.

The FWS proposed policy shift provides absolutely no enforcement mechanism to ensure that wildlife protection is advanced as a result of any importation.  There is no outline for what would constitute a sufficient incentive to enhance the survival of a given species in the wild to justify the approval of an import application.  There is no apparent remedy if money allegedly intended for in situ conservation is not actually put toward that goal.  In other words, if the money paid by a leather manufacturer, a zoo, an aquarium, or a trophy hunter does not end up benefiting conservation, there will be no recourse: the animal will already be confined on display in captivity or turned into a belt and boots, or mounted on someone’s wall or spread across their floor.  This proposed policy by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is unenforceable.

The proposed policy change also sends a terrible message to developing country governments that the natural bounty with which they are blessed is only advantageous when the animals are captured or killed and sold for profit.  As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorialized on October 14, 2003: “There is, too, a distasteful arrogance in telling poor countries that the way to save their dwindling treasures and diminishing wildlife is to peddle to rich Americans.” This is a disingenuous message at best since it is well-established that ecotourism is of greater financial benefit to local communities than consumptive wildlife exploitation.  Whale-watching brings in greater revenue than whale killing; African photographic safaris bring in more revenue than trophy hunting endangered species.  The Denver Post, in opposing the change, also made editorial note of these dangers on October 15, 2003: “The fact is, developing countries get more economic value from preserving wildlife than they could ever reap from destructive exploitation. Kenya, one of Africa's leaders in wildlife conservation, says it would get a one-time benefit of about $10,000 if it let a hunter kill an elephant. But keeping that elephant alive in its native habitat brings the country up to $200,000 a year for decades. In fact, Kenya estimates its live, wild elephants net the developing country an impressive $60 million annually in tourist revenue. So even nations the administration pretends to help would be hurt by the new policy.”

The FWS must not put hundreds of species in other countries at risk by adopting a policy change that facilitates the importation of endangered animals.  AWI urges the Service to withdraw its proposal to expand the application of enhancement-of-survival permits to foreign-listed endangered species.  Although I am confident that FWS is well aware of Aaron Chassy’s powerful letter to the editor that appeared in the October 17, 2003 Washington Post it is reprinted below.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments and I look forward to working with FWS in the future to promote genuine wildlife conservation efforts that will benefit threatened and endangered species across the globe.

Sincerely,

Adam M. Roberts

Endangered Species: Conservation or Depredation?

Friday, October 17, 2003; Page A28

I was disappointed to read about the Bush administration's policy shifts on threatened species ["U.S. May Expand Access to Endangered Species," news story, Oct. 11].

I conducted field research for Kenneth Stansell and others at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1996 that refuted the very arguments he and others in the administration are using to justify the shift.

Commercial use of wildlife, whether through captive breeding or controlled "harvesting," does not pay for the species' conservation. Even when government sets a good policy and fair management rules and regulations are in place and reasonably enforced, private businesses often evade the scientific and management protocols with serious, sometimes irreversible consequences to the species. Local people, especially those living in poverty, rarely benefit, for reasons related not to wildlife biology but to politics.

This is true in both developing and developed countries. And make no mistake: Trading and trafficking in wildlife is serious business, which may help explain the Safari Club International's enormous political contributions ($274,000) in the 2000 election cycle.

I studied the effect of the commercial use in El Salvador of green iguanas, a protected species at the time. I interviewed local people, the iguana ranch owners, the ranch employees, the government officials responsible for enforcing the regulations and wildlife biologists and conservationists in El Salvador and in the United States.

My findings were straightforward: The local communities received no tangible benefits from the sustainable production and trade of green iguanas in El Salvador. In some cases, they were worse off, because the iguana ranchers had bought the land that tenant farmers had been renting to graze their cattle, reducing the security of the tenant farmers' livelihood.

Before making a decision on whether to allow for the intensified commercial use of threatened species, it is critical to answer the following questions: Who benefits? How much do they benefit? How do they benefit?

Failure to do so not only will endanger the species but also will hurt the local people who were supposed to benefit.

AARON M. CHASSY

Arlington