Safari Club International Files Motion for Preliminary Injunction Against Elephant Importation Bans
Safari Club International 05.01.14
Safari Club International’s (SCI) litigation team took the second step in its challenge to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) bans on the importation of sport-hunted elephants from Zimbabwe and Tanzania. SCI filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to immediately lift the importation bans. SCI’s motion explained that emergency relief is necessary to prevent harm to those who have elephant hunts planned for 2014 and to the elephants whose conservation has been placed at risk by the FWS’s actions.
In the preliminary injunction documents, SCI argued that (1) elephant conservation, including anti-poaching efforts, will suffer under the bans; (2) hunters and safari operators, are irreparably harmed by the loss to the value of hunts and the loss of business; and (3) decreased numbers of U.S. hunters means that the hunting operations will have less money to invest in community projects and habitat improvement. Together with the motion, SCI submitted a record number of over 40 declarations from hunters, outfitters, and booking agents to show the court the damage the suspension of importation has already caused and will continue to cause. The statements from these members demonstrate the stories of the more than 130 members that wrote to SCI’s attorneys to explain just how important this issue is to the entire organization.
SCI requested that the Court schedule a hearing on its motion as soon as possible. The federal government has already informed SCI’s attorneys that they will oppose the preliminary injunction request. The government now has seven days to respond to SCI’s motion.
SCI filed its Complaint in this lawsuit on April 21st. We have and will continue to make every effort to obtain an expeditious reversal of this blow to hunting and to African elephant conservation.
Protecting hunters’ rights and promoting wildlife conservation, SCI’s two areas of focus, historically has been the interest of hundreds of individuals long before SCI was established. But how did SCI as an organization begin?
Forty years ago, there were many safari clubs across the country made up of local, unaffiliated groups of hunters. One such was Safari Club of Los Angeles, which was formed in April 1971 by forty-seven individuals. In early 1972, an out-of-towner from a similar club in Chicago attended one of the monthly Wednesday night meetings, and it was decided that the L.A. club should attempt to combine with the one in Chicago to make it an affiliated chapter. The founder of Safari Club of Los Angeles, C.J. McElroy, went to the Windy City and instituted the new chapter.
Eleven months after the formation of Safari Club of Los Angeles, on March 9, 1972, the name was changed officially to Safari Club International. SCI continued to reach out to other independent safari clubs throughout the United States in an effort to combine them into a single overall organization.
Today, interest in SCI’s two primary missions has grown a worldwide network. Subsequent involvement and promotion of these missions is rooted in each of our 55,000 members, supported through each of our 190 membership chapters found across the globe, and put into action by government representatives and personnel both nationally and internationally.
In this way, we can encourage an appreciation for nature and wildlife so that conservation efforts remain strong, while also fighting to protect our rich hunting heritage. Big changes can be achieved through the endeavors of many who are united in a mission – the mission of Safari Club International.
