Safari Club International

Safari Club International
Motto First for Hunters
Formation 1973
Headquarters Tucson, Arizona
Membership
50,000
Website www.safariclub.org

Safari Club International (SCI) is an international organization composed of hunters dedicated to protecting the freedom to hunt. SCI has more than 50,000 members and 180 local chapters. SCI members agree to abide by the organization's code of ethics which includes making a positive contribution to wildlife and ecosystems, complying with game laws and assisting game and fish officers.

Leadership

Safari Club International was founded by C.J. McElroy and fellow hunters in 1972. Early chapters were founded in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Arizona, and Mississippi. McElroy was an accomplished hunter, hunting on 6 continents and in nearly 50 countries with over 200 record book specimens. However, McElroy was forced to resign in 1988 and Bill Quimby, a past President of SCI, writes in his book "Safari Club International" that there were rumors among hunters that McElroy "ignored hunting laws," that McElroy was even accused of killing a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram in a national park, and that his "ideas of sportsmanship and ethics simply were different from those of hunters who came along later.

"SCI's organizational structure is composed of the President, Vice President, and regional directors at large, all elected to their posts from within the membership. Presidents are elected to a term of 1 year, Vice Presidents to a term of 2 years. The organization's headquarters is in Tucson, Arizona. Safari Club International holds an annual convention in conjunction with their Ultimate Hunters' Market exhibition.

Conservation projects

SCI conservation and education programs are conducted by Safari Club International Foundation, a non-profit organization "dedicated to wildlife conservation, outdoor education, and humanitarian services."[1] Although this foundation was set up by SCI and shares board members with SCI, it is a separate legal entity.

Humanitarian services

Sportsmen Against Hunger began in 1989,[2] and through the network of SCI chapters, provides food banks with meat from harvested animals. In 2006, over 250,000 pounds of wild game were donated to charitable relief organizations.[2] The Sensory Safari program allows sight-impaired individuals to get a “visual” perspective of what animals are like by feeling mounts, skins, skulls, horns, and antlers.[3] The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) asked SCIF to host a Sensory Safari at its annual convention. In 1997, the NFB signed a memorandum of understanding with SCI to host Sensory Safaris at all future NFB national and state conventions.[4] Hunters who participate in the SafariCare program take bags filled by SCI chapter with medical, school, and relief supplies to clinics and schools in remote regions of the developing world.[5] The SafariWish program, part of the SafariCare program, is designed to give children with life-threatening illnesses a chance to go hunting.[5] The Disabled Hunter program, through SCI chapters, provides sponsorship for hunting trips for disabled sportsmen.[6]

Annual hunters convention

Taxidermy display from SCI 2011 Hunter's convention

Since 1973, SCI has hosted an Annual hunters convention. In 2013, over 25,000 SCI members, and 1,000 exhibitors participated in the convention.[7]

Publications

The organization publishes a bi-monthly magazine titled Safari that features hunting stories, issues affecting the hunting sportsman, reviews of books and equipment, as well as conservation reports. Safari has a special awards issue, which honors trophy hunters each year.

The news publication of the organization is Safari Times.

Awards

The Safari Club International Record Book is the largest such record keeping system in the world. Trophies are measured and listed according to size (horns, antlers, tusks, and/or body size) where taken (free range or estate), how taken (bow and arrow, rifle, muzzleloader) and whether typical or non-typical for the species. Medals and awards are presented dependent on ranking within species. This book ranks every species of game animal using the SCI official scoring method. “Highest scores go to the animals with the largest measurements.”[8] Awards ceremonies are held at the annual Safari Club Convention, Night of the Hunter event.

Political lobbying

In 1979, when SCI was fairly new, it sought government approval to import 1,125 trophies from 40 different species (gorillas, cheetahs, tigers, orangutans, snow leopards, and others) into the US for "scientific research and incentive for propagation and survival of the species." Because the animals were to be hunted, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied the request.[9]

Polar bear imports

In 1994, SCI successfully lobbied for a change in the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act 1972 to allow for the importation of previously banned sport-hunted polar bear trophies into the United States from Canada.[10] In 2007, SCI testified at a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service hearing opposing the proposed listing of polar bears as a "threatened" species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The FWS is concerned that climate change is or will place polar bears at risk of extinction.[11] SCI/SCIF argued that the science cited by the FWS was speculative and incomplete at the time. Relatively healthy populations of polar bears exist in the areas where hunting is allowed and it said that sport hunting of these populations would provide funding for habitat and study as well as income for native populations. SCI stated, "[...] [T]he U.S. decision to list will merely change the identity of those who hunt the animals from U.S. hunters to exclusively native residents[...]"[12]

Criticism

Endangered species

SCI has been criticized by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) for supporting the hunting of endangered African antelope species at game ranches in Texas and Florida and for giving awards for hunting African leopards, elephants, lions, rhinos and buffaloes.[13]

SCI, along with other hunting and non-hunting organizations, intervened in a federal suit where HSUS challenged regulations that allow hunting of captive scimitar-horned oryx, dama gazelle and addax. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) found that, “[c]aptive breeding in the United States has enhanced the propagation or survival of the scimitar-horned oryx, addax, and dama gazelle worldwide by rescuing these species from near extinctions and providing the founder stock necessary for reintroduction. The scimitar-horned oryx is extinct in the wild across its range in North Africa, having been last seen in Niger and Chad in the mid-1980s. The dama gazelle and addax are rumored to exist in only a few small and highly fragmented populations in the most remote parts of the Sahara Desert. However, healthy populations of all three species still exist in the United States.[14] Sport hunting of surplus, captive-bred animals generates revenue that supports these captive-breeding operations and may relieve hunting pressure on wild populations.”[15] As of February 2008, this case is still pending.[16] In the case of the black rhino, 83% of those countries represented at the 2004 CITES meeting approved sport hunting of the species in very limited numbers.[17]

Members engaged in unethical hunting practices and poaching

Ken Behring was a former president of SCI and was at one time its largest donor. He has made multiple safari trips to East Africa, and has shot lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, an elephant, and an endangered bighorn sheep. Behring has been criticized for his trophy hunting practices and animal conservation ethics.[18]

In 1997, Behring shot an endangered Kara Tau argali sheep in Kazakhstan (only 100 remained in the world at the time).[19] Behring claimed he had permits to shoot the sheep and had Russian scientists in his hunting party; he was issued export permits two days before the enactment of a prior international decision to move Kara Tau argali to the most-endangered status.[42] Per American law, the remains of the endangered animal could not be legally imported into the United States. Behring donated $20 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History six weeks later, offering his private collection of stuffed hunting trophies to the museum, including four rare bighorn sheep, one of which was the Kara Tau argali sheep. The Smithsonian attempted to import the remains by petitioning the Department of the Interior for an Endangered Species Act waiver, but withdrew its request after questioning and negative publicity from Representative George Miller and groups like the Humane Society of the United States. Behring maintained that he had broken no laws, and had shot the animal legally while assisting Kazakh scientists. The National Museum of Natural History subsequently reevaluated their acquisitions policies in light of the charges.[20]

In 1998, Behring shot and killed an elephant in Mozambique, where the sport killing of elephants was banned in 1990.[21] His hunting companions, the then past and current presidents of Safari Club International, killed two more elephants. Mozambican wildlife officials believed that the group had come "to survey investment opportunities" in Cabo Delgado province. The group was given a permit by the governor to shoot a lion, a leopard and a buffalo; a local wildlife official also added a note referring to "problem elephants," the only exception to the national ban on the killing of elephants. According to Arlito Cuco, head of Mozambique's wildlife service, a federal investigation showed that the hunt was illegal because it did not target problem elephants, and that two of the elephant tusks had gone missing. Local investigators also reported that the group used a helicopter during the hunt, which "drove the elephants onto their guns" -- a charge they denied. According to the New York Times, Behring's spokesperson "sent a reporter a copy of a $5,000 check, dated six weeks after the hunt and made out to the provincial government with the notation 'elephant permit.'" The then-director of the game reserve near where the elephants had been killed was skeptical, telling ABC News PrimeTime "They came in there and bankrolled an operation to take out some big elephant, and it is wrong. And nobody, nobody can condone what happened."

SCI was founded by trophy hunter C.J. McElroy, who claimed to be the greatest trophy hunter in the world. McElroy hunted in nearly fifty countries, on six continents. He killed nearly 400 trophy animals that appear in SCI's record book, including animals who are now endangered and can no longer be hunted. McElroy was forced to resign in 1988. Bill Quimby, a past President of SCI, writes in his book "Safari Club International" that there were rumors among hunters that McElroy "ignored hunting laws," that McElroy was even accused of killing a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram in a national park, and that his "ideas of sportsmanship and ethics simply were different from those of hunters who came along later."

Cecil the lion

Cecil the lion was a lion that lived primarily in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He was a major attraction at the park and was being studied and tracked by the University of Oxford as part of a larger study. He was initially wounded with an arrow by Walter Palmer, an American dentist and SCI member,[22][23][24] then tracked, and reportedly killed with a rifle approximately 40 hours later on 1 July 2015. Palmer says that Cecil was killed with a bow and arrow in much less than 40 hours after the lion was first wounded.[25] Cecil was 13 years old when killed.

Palmer was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing by the Zimbabwean Government [26] and all charges were dropped.

Revenue sources

For the tax year ending June 2006, SCI reported $2.87 million in revenue from SCI publications; $3.17 million in membership dues; $205,967 in interest on savings and temporary investments; $75,771 from sales of assets other than inventory; $6.86 million from special events such as the annual convention; $156,014 from sales of inventory; and $6,089 miscellaneous income.[27]

In 2007, the New York legislature earmarked $50,000 of public funds for SCI.[28]

References

  1. ↑ "Safari Club Foundation". Safariclubfoundation.org. Retrieved 2008-10-27.
  2. 1 2 "Sportsmen Against Hunger". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25.
  3. ↑ "Buckeye Bulletin".
  4. ↑ "SCIF Sensory Safari". Archived from the original on 2007-09-21.
  5. 1 2 "SafariCare / SafariWish". Archived from the original on 2011-01-16.
  6. ↑ "Disabled Hunter". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25.
  7. ↑ "SCI New Member Welcome Kit" (PDF). Tucson, Arizona: Safari Club International. 2010. Retrieved 2011-03-08.
  8. ↑ name=http://www.scirecordbook.org/login/index.cfm
  9. ↑ "The Humane Society of the United States, "A View to a Kill: How Safari Club Int'l Works to Weaken ESA Protections"". Archived from the original on 2006-06-15.
  10. ↑ "The Humane Society of the United States, "Polar Bears Hunted in Dwindling Habitat."".
  11. ↑ "Safari Club International press release, Outdoor Wire, March 7, 2007".
  12. ↑ "SCI Comments on USGS Reports/Polar Bear October 2007" (PDF).
  13. ↑ The Humane Society of the United States (2005). "Trophy Hunting Groups Asks Federal Court to Endorse "Canned" Hunting of Endangered Animals Trapped Behind Fences". Archived from the original on 2008-04-21. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  14. ↑ https://firstforwildlife.com/2015/11/24/saving-the-three-amigos/
  15. ↑ U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (2005). "Federal Register: September 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 170)". Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
  16. ↑ Endangered Environmental Laws Program (2007). "Recent Cases". Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
  17. ↑ Safari Club International (2007). "CITES Final Report". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  18. ↑ Reporter, Staff. "Hunters red-faced over elephant shoot". The M&G Online. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  19. ↑ BALZAR, JOHN (1999-03-21). "Smithsonian Museum in Cross-Hairs of Debate". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  20. ↑ "Wild Sheep Controversy". Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  21. ↑ Reporter, Staff. "Hunters red-faced over elephant shoot". The M&G Online. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  22. ↑ Capecchi, Christina; Rogers, Katie (30 July 2015). "Killer of Cecil the lion finds out that he is a target now, of internet vigilantism". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
  23. ↑ Bakst, Brian (28 July 2015). "US Man accused in African lion death thought hunt was legal". Yahoo! News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 14 October 2015. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
  24. ↑ "Zimbabwe's 'iconic' lion Cecil killed by hunter". BBC News. 27 July 2015. Archived from the original on 28 July 2015. Retrieved 3 August 2015.
  25. ↑ "Full transcript: Walter Palmer speaks about Cecil the lion controversy". Star Tribune. Minneapolis, Minnesota. 7 September 2015. Archived from the original on 5 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
  26. ↑ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-wildlife-hunter-idUSKBN1360ZT?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
  27. ↑ Archived September 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  28. ↑ New York Times. April 11, 2007. “A Budget That Covers All Bases”
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