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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has announced it will allow a trophy hunter from Michigan to import the skin, skull and horns of a rare black rhino he killed in Africa.
Records show that Chris D. Peyerk, of Shelby Township, Michigan, last year applied for the license required by the Fish and Wildlife Service to import animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. . Peyerk donated $ 400,000 to a poaching program to obtain permission to hunt the rhinoceros bull in a Namibian national park in May 2018.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature ranks black rhinos among endangered species, with about 5,500 people in the wild. Nearly half of these are in Namibia, an international convention allowing five rhinoceros hunters a year to be legally killed by hunters.
The subspecies that Peyrek listed in his application, the Southwest Black Rhinoceros, is classified as "vulnerable" by IUCN, which means that it is less threatened to disappear than the rest of the world. # 39; species.
Peyerk did not answer a phone message on Thursday asking for comments. He is president of Dan's Excavating Inc., a major Michigan construction contractor.
The number of black rhinos has increased in recent years with stricter conservation management, but dozens of people are illegally poached each year for their horns, sold on the black market for use in traditional Chinese medicine and as a symbol of status. The horns are composed largely of the protein keratin, also the main component of hair and nails.
"Legal and well-regulated hunting as part of a rational management program can be beneficial for the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities for the conservation of the species and reinvesting the necessary income. in conservation, "said Laury Parramore, spokeswoman for the Fisheries and Wildlife Service.
For decades, federal regulators have not issued import permits for black rhinos. However, following the rebound of populations in Africa, the Obama administration issued three from 2013. The Trump administration has issued two more.
Although President Donald Trump has labeled trophy hunting in a tweet of "horror show", his adult sons are avid big game hunters and his government has overturned restrictions imposed by the Obama era to import trophies of elephants and endangered lions from several African countries.
The records show that Peyerk was represented in his efforts to obtain a rhinoceros license by John J. Jackson III, a lawyer from Louisiana who provides free legal assistance to trophy hunters through a non-profit group. called Conservation Force. He was also president of Safari Club International, a trophy hunting group that lobbied the Trump administration to ease restrictions on the import of big game endangered.
Jackson was named in 2018 to the International Council for Wildlife Conservation, an advisory committee created by then Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, to help promote trophy hunting. Jackson stated that he did not see any problem in advising the Fish and Wildlife Service on policy issues while addressing a request to the agency on behalf of its legal clients.
"Clearances are just one of the wheels of the conservation wheel of what we do," Jackson said Friday. "We establish and support programs on the ground that improve the survival of the species in question, and our mission is to rebuild the population of the species, not the private interest of the hunter."
The $ 400,000 paid by Peyrek went to a trust fund established by the Namibian government for wildlife management, conservation, rural development and other activities to promote the coexistence of humans and wildlife. from wildlife.
The Humane Society has criticized the federal decision to allow Peyerk to import the remains of the black rhinoceros.
"We urge the federal government to end this pay-to-slay scheme that offers rich Americans rhino trophies that are in serious danger of extinction, while bringing a devastating blow to rhinoceros conservation," he said. Kitty Block, head of the Humane Society of United States and Humane Society International. "Although we can not go back to save this animal, the administration may prevent the United States from further contributing to the extinction of this species by refusing future import permits for rhinoceros trophies." black."
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