Wildlife Court Calendar

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

U.S. District Judge for the D.C. Circuit Gladys Kessler on
July 31 rejected a Fund for Animals lawsuit challenging the authority
of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue import permits for
Argali sheep trophies imported from Mongolia, Tajikistan, and
Kyrgyzstan. The Fund argued that hunting the Argali put the species
in peril. Responded Kessler, in granting a motion for summary
judgement solicited by Safari Club International on behalf of USFWS
and the Department of the Interior, “Because U.S. hunters generally
pay the highest prices for hunting permits issued by the Tajikistan
government, the absence of legal U.S. hunting substantially
decreased the permit revenues received by the Tajikistan government.
Because permit revenues were used in part for conservation and to
‘convince the local population not to poach,’ the decreased revenues
actually resulted in increasing the amount of poaching in the
region.” In short, Kessler reaffirmed the paradigm prevailing in
wildlife law since the Middle Ages that because hunters fund wildlife
management, wildlife management should favor hunting.

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