Trophy Animal Killing Group supports Pombo

The Safari Club International sent out a desperate appeal to its members recently. What was it for? Elephants going extinct and they couldn't kill them anymore? Were they worried that global warming would melt all the ice and take away their chance to kill polar bears?

No, it was even more serious than that -- their favorite boy in DC needed money to beat back the "environmental extremists".

This situation is dire, and your assistance is urgently needed. Funding is desperately needed to stave off the millions of dollars of scurrilous ads from our opponents. We MUST help our friend and supporter Richard Pombo.

Maybe they don't realize that Pombo already has over $3 million in the bank and only a few weeks to spend it. But how they want to waste their money is their business.

What is appalling is that Pombo has anything to do with this group. He obviously agrees with their views and gave a speech to the club in Elk Grove this past April. Pombo also is not averse to canned hunts, seeing as he took an opportunity to kill a semi-domesticated bison as part of a fundraiser, as reported here.

At a press agent's insistence, the [Rosebud Sioux] tribe barred reporters from watching the hunt or the ceremony that followed. But observers said Pombo hit the bull with one shot from a 7-millimeter rifle from about 75 yards, and the bull ran a good distance before dying.

But Pombo doesn't stop with the nearly hunted-to-extinction bison, he wants to go after whales, elephants, turtles, and anything else, endangered or not, apparently. On May 21, 2001, he read into the Congressional Record his support of commercial whaling and the "wise use" of other renewable wildlife, "whether the subject species are elephants, turtles, whales, or trees".

Back to the Safari Club International (SCI), promoters of what has been called "the blood sport of the super rich". See this Chicago Tribune article on one of their conventions.

Craggy men in khaki vests prowled the carpeted convention hall, escorted by women in leopard print blouses and snakeskin jackets.

Videotaped rifle shots crackled from the 1,100 exhibit booths where hunt guides played kill films in mesmerizing loops.

For four days last month, the sprawling Reno-Sparks Convention Center became a glittering shrine to the blood sport of the super-rich -- big game hunters who crisscross the globe to make trophies out of lions, leopards and other exotic animals.

Or listen to what the Humane Society has to say about these dear friends of Pombo:

Wayne Pacelle, HSUS senior vice president for communications and government affairs, captures the essence of SCI members and their motivation: "It's a perverse and destructive subculture," he says. "Thousands of animals suffer and die for the amusement of wealthy elites who have the means to pursue any form of recreation, but choose to shoot the world's rarest and most beautiful animals. There's no societal value to the exercise, just a selfish all-consuming mentality of killing, collecting, and showing off trophies. They know the price of every animal, but the value of none."

Now how long before Pombo's campaign manager calls the Humane Society "environmental extremists" or "a liberal group from Berkeley"?

Going out on canned hunts of ranch-raised "wildlife" purely for mounted heads and skins is fine with Pombo, whereas exercising compassion and care for our natural environment and the wildlife in it is "too liberal" and "extremist", in his mind.

"Perverse and destructive" indeed.

Tags: CA-11, Richard Pombo, Safari Club International, Safari Club, SCI, Endangered Species Act, ESA, Humane Society, HSUS, Jerry McNerney