Leopard-hunting vacation packages being bought for as much as £116,000 whereas UK ban on trophy imports stalls | EUROtoday

Holidays to shoot endangered leopards are being bought on-line for as much as £116,000, The Independent can reveal – whereas a long-promised UK ban on trophy hunt imports stays stalled.

Big-game tour corporations are brazenly selling on-line vacation packages or auctions to win the rights to kill the animals in Africa, whose numbers are in decline throughout the continent.

Some corporations, which have dozens of looking journeys on sale, supply “extras” to rich hunters, together with the prospect to shoot elephants, lions and cheetahs.

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One web site has a factors system, underneath which gunmen could also be awarded silver, gold, platinum or diamond membership as they notch up rewards for looking extra animals and rarer species.

A brand new report by the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting reveals the “disturbing” ways used, resembling baiting leopards with reside animals or beginning fires intentionally to flush the large cats out of hiding.

In one case, a filmmaker recalled seeing a reside duiker – or antelope – being tied by wire to a tree to lure a leopard, which was then shot illegally at night time, the International Leopard Report says. It was not recognized who was accountable.

The report additionally reveals statistics displaying that 709 leopard trophies – skins, skulls, bones and full our bodies – had been exported from Africa in 2023. Four of these mementoes had been introduced into the UK.

Governments have repeatedly promised to ban imports of looking trophies to discourage Britons from abroad capturing safaris.

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Both Conservative and Labour election manifestos have included pledges to introduce a ban, and in a authorities public session in 2020, 84 per cent of respondents backed a ban on imports and exports.

However, each the Tories and Labour have been accused of dithering since then. In 2022, Boris Johnson’s authorities dropped the Animals Abroad Bill, which might have introduced in a ban.

Last 12 months, 11 friends within the Lords blocked the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, written by the federal government and handed by MPs. A non-public member’s invoice of the identical identify by MP John Spellar later ran out of time.

Now, one other personal member’s invoice, by Conservative David Reed, is due for a second studying subsequent month. It is known that the federal government will say then whether or not it helps it.

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The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, backed by tv stars Joanna Lumley and Chris Packham, is looking on the federal government to make a ban a precedence.

Leopards are protected underneath worldwide regulation and categorized as susceptible by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with some subspecies going through larger threats.

In 2016, scientists stated the large cat had disappeared from 75 per cent of its historic habitat, however since then, inhabitants numbers have been troublesome to find out.

The report says numbers could have plummeted by as much as 90 per cent in 50 years, to round 50,000.

Safari Club International, a membership that helps authorized looking, gives awards for capturing the “African big five” – elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos and buffalo.

Steven Chancellor, a high donor to US president Donald Trump, is likely one of the world’s most prolific hunters, based on looking information for 2015 and 2016 from Safari Club International – the world’s largest trophy-hunting group.

Mr Chancellor logged almost 500 kills, together with not less than 18 lions, six elephants, two rhinos and 13 leopards. One of these was the most important ever recorded. In 2018, he reportedly stated unlawful poaching was endangering African wildlife, not looking.

“Poachers are killing 30,000 elephants and 1,000 rhinos every year,” The Columbus Dispatch reported. And a blogger quoted him as saying in 2012 that looking saved aged male lions from illness, hunger or being eaten by hyenas.

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The US was the largest importer of leopard trophies final 12 months, with 356 recorded, adopted by South Africa and Hungary, based on the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting’s new examine.

The package deal being provided by a industrial firm for $156,300 (£116,476), which is for 28 days in Tanzania, could embody possibilities to shoot elephants, lions, buffalo, hippos, antelope, guineafowl, geese and geese.

Eduardo Gonçalves, founding father of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, stated: “Leopards are shy, intelligent, and iconic animals that are now on the brink, yet they’re being massacred for bragging rights. It’s not conservation, it’s barbarism.

“Britain must show leadership. Nine out of ten voters want a ban. The government has drafted a bill. The bill passed unanimously in the Commons before the election.

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“Why doesn’t Defra [the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs] bring it back as a government bill? Labour made a manifesto pledge to ban hunting trophies but won’t say when.

“It’s the 10th anniversary of the killing of Cecil the lion this year. The government should be prioritising this instead of seemingly sitting on its hands.”

A Defra spokesperson stated: “The government was elected on mandate to ban the import of hunting trophies – that is exactly what we will do.”