By Lawrence G. Keane
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Two anti-hunting groups are making a move to kill hunting. They’re looking to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Department of the Interior (DOI) to publish a rule that would eliminate transporting harvested wild animals and most birds across state lines.
It is the most serious threat to hunting in the United States since Dan Ashe, former USFWS director, attempted to ban the use of traditional ammunition on federal lands. That attempt was rolled back by former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. This attempt must be turned back by every hunter in America.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council are co-opting COVID-19 fears to push their radical anti-hunting agenda in a petition to the USFWS and DOI. They are ignoring reports of China’s potential complicity on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, they are faulting hunters as potential pathogen pathways and attempting to end hunting even in neighboring states.
The petition claims, “Pandemics caused by zoonoses – infectious diseases that jump from animals to people – are entirely preventable.” The mechanisms they would impose include a complete ban on interstate transport of not just live animals, but also the meat, hide, horns, antlers and skulls of harvested animals. The petition doesn’t discriminate between a ban on species harvested internationally. It also targets hunters who take animals in other states and transport them home, even if they’ve been professionally prepared by a butcher or taxidermist to safeguard against the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease.
The groups’ petition would amend the Lacey Act regulations to prohibit the importation, transportation or acquisition of wild animals. Since the
