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White House eyes change in endangered animals policy

Proponents claim move will help poor countries and their rare species

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.
Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would both feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitats.

This and other proposals that pursue conservation through trade would, for example, open the door for American trophy hunters to kill the endangered straight-horned markhor in Pakistan; license the pet industry to import the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina; permit the capture of endangered Asian elephants for U.S. circuses and zoos; and partially resume the international trade in African ivory. No U.S. endangered species would be affected.

Conservation groups counter that killing or capturing even a few animals is hardly the best way to protect endangered species, and say the policies cater to individuals and businesses that profit from animal exploitation. "It's a very dangerous precedent to decide that wildlife exploitation is in the best interest of wildlife," said Adam Roberts, a senior research associate at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy group for endangered species.

The latest proposal involves an interpretation of the Endangered Species Act that deviates radically from the course followed by Republican and Democratic administrations since President Nixon signed the act in 1973. The law established broad protection for endangered species, most of which are not native to America, and effectively prohibited trade in them.

Kenneth Stansell, assistant director for international affairs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said there has been a growing realization that the Endangered Species Act provides poor countries no incentive to protect dying species. Allowing American hunters, circuses and the pet industry to pay countries to take fixed numbers of animals from the wild would fund conservation programs for remaining animals, he said.

U.S. officials note that such trade is already open to hunters, pet importers and zoos in other Western nations. They say the idea is supported by poor countries that are home to the endangered species and would benefit from the revenue.

Officials at the Department of Interior and Fish and Wildlife, who are spearheading many of the new policies, said the proposals merely implement rarely used provisions in the law.

"This is absolutely consistent with the Endangered Species Act, as written," said David Smith, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. "I think the nature of the beast is such that there are critics who are going to claim some kind of ulterior motive."

Animal welfare advocates question the logic of the new approach, saying that foreign countries and groups that stand to profit will be in charge of determining how many animals can be killed or captured. Advocates also warn that opening the door to legal trade will allow poaching to flourish.

"As soon as you place a financial price on the head of wild animals, the incentive is to kill the animal or capture them," Roberts said. "The minute people find out they can have an easier time killing, shipping and profiting from wildlife, they will do so."

The proposals also trigger a visceral response: To many animal lovers, these species have emotional and symbolic value, and should never be captured or killed.

The Endangered Species Act prohibits removing domestic endangered species from the wild. Until now, that protection was extended to foreign species. Explaining the change, Stansell said, "There is a recognition that these sovereign nations have a different way of managing their natural resources."

Indeed, many of the strongest advocates for "sustainable use" programs -- under which some animals are "harvested" to raise money to save the rest -- have been countries that are home to various endangered species. Foreign trade groups and governments have tried for years -- mostly in vain -- to convince the United States that animals are no longer in limited supply, or that capturing or killing fixed numbers would not drive a species to extinction.

That could change after Oct. 17, the end of the public comment period on one proposed change. The proposal identified several species:

Morelet's crocodile, an endangered freshwater crocodile found in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. Its skin is prized by U.S. leather importers.

The endangered Asian elephant of India and Southeast Asia. The declining population in U.S. breeding programs "has raised a significant demand among the (U.S.) zoo and circus community," the proposal said.

The Asian bonytongue, a valuable aquarium fish, found in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

The straight-horned mar-khor, an endangered wild goat in Pakistan distinguished by corkscrew-shaped horns.

According to the proposal, "allowing a limited number of U.S. hunters an opportunity to import trophies from this population could provide a significant increase in funds available for conservation."

John Monson, a New Hampshire trophy hunter and former chairman of that state's Fish and Game Commission, said the program would help preserve rare animals. In 1999, Monson applied for a permit to shoot and import a straight-horned markhor. He was turned down.

Monson said the money he has spent hunting trophies -- including a leopard from Namibia and a bontebok antelope from South Africa -- has funded conservation programs.

Monson is president-elect of Safari Club International, a national hunting advocacy group. He agreed to an interview only in his personal capacity.

Safari Club International gave $274,000 to candidates during the 2000 election cycle, 86 percent of it to Republicans. It also spent $5,445 printing bumper stickers for the Bush presidential campaign. Monson has made a variety of contributions himself, including $1,000 to the Bush for President campaign.

Teresa Telecky, former director of the wildlife trade program at the Humane Society, blamed lobbying by Safari Club International and other special interest groups for a "sea change" in conservation policy. "The approach of this administration is it is all right to kill endangered or threatened species or capture them from the wild so long as somebody says there would be some conservation benefit," she said.

Stansell said conservation goals, not lobbying, drove the proposals, which he said evolved through previous administrations.

Still, the application of "sustainable use" has never been so broad. Last November, the U.S. reversed its long-held position and voted to allow Botswana, Namibia and South Africa to resume trade in their ivory stockpiles. Stansell said the sales, which have not yet begun, will support elephant conservation.

But Susan Lieberman, former chief of the Scientific Authority at the Fish and Wildlife Service and now director of the species program at the World Wildlife Fund, said legal trade in ivory always triggers illegal poaching. "Money doesn't always mean conservation," she added. "To me, the theme is allowing an industry to write the rules, which is a Bush administration pattern."

Smith, the administration official, said permits would be issued only after foreign countries showed they had strong conservation programs. "There is nothing else we have as a country to force other countries to conserve their wildlife, other than being paternalistic and saying 'no, no, no,'" he said.

In another "sustainable use" proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced in August a precedent-setting exemption to the Wild Bird Conservation Act, which was signed into law in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush. The policy would allow importation of the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina. The agency is reviewing public comment.

The prized parrots sell for several hundred dollars apiece. Stansell said Argentina, which approached Fish and Wildlife with the proposal, would allow the capture of about 10 nestling parrots from five nests in every 250 acres of parrot habitat.

With export taxes of $40 to $80 per bird, a 250-acre area would generate $400 to $800 per year to support conservation. Stansell conceded that cutting down forest habitat and selling timber would generate far more money for landowners, but said the Argentine government concluded that owners would prefer sustainable returns from selling the birds.

Conservation biologists said the service made poor estimates -- or no estimates -- about how many parrots would be left.

"It's an extraordinarily bad idea," said Jamie Gilardi, director of the World Parrot Trust, a conservation group that has filed opposition to the plan in a letter signed by 88 international biologists. "The quotas are based on poor or inadequate science -- and the sustainability issue is simply not addressed at all."

The Fish and Wildlife Service's parrot proposal cited scientific estimates by Enrique Bucher, a top Argentine parrot biologist, in determining how many birds could be safely captured. But in a telephone interview from the University of Cordoba in Argentina, Bucher said his research actually showed the U.S. proposal was poorly conceived and lacked scientific oversight.

"It's a very romantic idea, but in practice I do not know any positive examples," he said, referring to "sustainable use" plans. "The assumption that local communities will have the organization and altruism to put the money into long-term protection of the environment where you have terrible economic forces pushing for deforestation is a little naive."

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