The US Fish and Wildlife Service released a final rule that provides important additional Endangered Species Act protections for imperiled African elephants. However, the agency failed to prohibit the import of wild-caught elephants for display in zoos, along with sport-hunted elephant trophies.
The capture and removal of wild elephants from close-knit family herds is traumatic for both the captured individuals and the remaining herd. Elephants are highly unsuited to captivity and inevitably suffer in zoos, which cannot meet the complex cognitive and social needs of the species. Trophy hunting also harms the structure and viability of wild elephant populations. And while trophy hunting proponents often tout its supposed contributions to conservation and local economies, studies show these claims to be vastly overstated.
Nevertheless, the final rule does contain many improvements to current US elephant import policies, including (1) requiring exporting range states to provide information about their elephant conservation efforts; (2) requiring all US facilities receiving live elephants to be “suitably equipped to house and care for them”; and (3) by 2026, allowing non-ivory elephant imports only from countries with domestic laws that conform to requirements under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.