PETA Statement: U.S. Must Not Allow Imports of Hunted Elephant Parts

For Immediate Release:
November 16, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Below, please find a statement from PETA Foundation Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders in response to news that the Trump administration will overturn a ban on importing body parts of elephants slaughtered overseas:

If President Trump allows baggage carousels to be filled with elephant feet and heads from corrupt Zimbabwe, he will have fashioned himself after its president, Robert Mugabe, who slaughters all in his path, rather than after Theodore Roosevelt, who, while a hunter of his times, would have been consumed with shame to shoot an elephant from a jeep, as today’s pathetic trophy hunters do. The suggestion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that slaughtering imperiled elephants is acceptable as long as a donation is given to “conservation” marks an expansion of its outrageous “pay-to-play” policy, which thwarts the Endangered Species Act. PETA has been challenging this policy for years and will continue to do so until the government recognizes that selling a threatened animal’s life to raise money for “conservation” is like selling a child on the black market to raise money to fight child molestation.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way,” and more information can be found at PETA.org.