Call for export ban on trophy carcases to stop foreign hunters killing rare British animals

FOREIGN trophy hunters are exporting carcases of birds of prey from Britain and travelling to the UK to shoot a species of deer that is extinct in the wild, campaigners have said.

The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, which is presenting evidence to the Government’s consultation on whether to ban trophy imports, has urged Theresa Villiers, the Environment

Secretary, to halt the practice in Britain. The 200-page submission contains evidence from scientists such as Prof Andrew Loveridge, of Oxford University, who studied Cecil the Lion, who was killed by an American biggame hunter in Zimbabwe, and Dr Anne Innis Dagg who researches giraffes for the University of Waterloo.

An open letter to Ms Villiers urging her to ban both imports and exports of trophies is signed by Sir Tim Bernerslee,

the inventor of the internet, Stanley Johnson, father of the Prime Minister, and representatives from the Catholic Church, as well as celebrities including Liam Gallagher, Dame Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley.

Together, they write: “Claiming that trophy hunting of endangered species is beneficial to conservation, but that illegal poaching of the same species is harmful, makes no sense. An impoverished African villager can be punished for killing a wild animal, while wealthy foreigners pay for the privilege to shoot the same animal for sport and selfies. Trophy hunting has no place in the modern world.”

While it is widely known that British hunters travel abroad to shoot rare animals including lions, elephants and cheetahs, data from the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) shows that hunters are exporting the bodies of rare birds as trophies from Britain to the US, including buzzards and cranes. It is illegal to shoot wild birds in Britain without a licence, but an argument to kill birds of prey such as buzzards can be made if they are causing damage to livestock.

Shooters also travel to the country in order to kill the Père David deer, which is listed as extinct in the wild. Some private parks in Britain contain populations of the deer, which enthusiasts can pay £7,000 to shoot for their heads and antlers. The animal, originally from China, was wiped out at the beginning of the 20th century and only exists in captivity. Foreign hunters have posed with corpses of the deer shot in Britain, and posted the photographs online.

British hunters have imported around 5,000 hunting trophies since the Eighties, and numbers are rising. Twelve times as many trophies were taken between 2010 and 2017 as were taken in the decade from 1981 to 1990.