Amid pressure from animal welfare groups and protestors, the (DSC) has canceled plans to auction off an African elephant hunt after the donor for the hunt withdrew his donation. The club had initially planned to auction the hunt at its annual convention and expo last weekend.
The club, which last year auctioned off a black rhino hunt, came under harsh criticism from the (IFAW). 鈥淓lephants are in enough danger as it is, with one being killed every 15 minutes for its ivory tusks,鈥 Jeffrey Flocken, IFAW North American regional director, . The $350,000 in proceeds from last year鈥檚 auction were given to the Namibian government to fund conservation efforts; a similar donation plan was initially in place for this year鈥檚 money. But Flocken says the donation isn鈥檛 a sufficient offset to the hunt. 鈥淭o offer a wealthy trophy hunter the chance to kill an elephant and then call it conservation really is beyond baffling,鈥 he said.
The lists African elephants as vulnerable and facing a high risk of extinction in the wild, . The IFAW鈥檚 press release says that the African elephant population has dropped as much as 95 percent in the past century, with about 420,000 left in the wild.
In a statement to the AP, DSC executive director Ben Carter said that 鈥渆lephants, lions, and leopards are not listed as endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and, in fact, are overpopulated in certain areas of Africa. These species are commonly hunted where legal, sustainable, and where populations need to be managed.鈥
Protestors demonstrated across the street from the hotel where the DSC鈥檚 convention was taking place, the AP reports, and Angela Antonisse-Oxley of the Black Rhino Project said that trophy hunts hinder conservation more than help it. 鈥淎 bullet is not going to save them,鈥 she said.