Save Endangered Species Act of 2013

Captive breeding programs are an essential part of re-establishing endangered species populations.

While the scimitar-horned oryx is extinct, and the addax and the dama gazelle are endangered, in their native Africa, thanks to the hunting industry their populations are flourishing and thriving in Texas.

U.S. populations of the scimitar-horned oryx, addax and the dama gazelle are not taken from the wild, but are bred from animals imported in the 1970s.

A biologist and executive director of the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, tells The Houston Chronicle, “In this instance, Texas ranchers have done an astonishing job of rebuilding three species of African antelope, one of which is extinct in the wild. When it comes to saving a species, government on its own cannot save those species. The private sector has to get involved.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wisely granted an exemption from certain provisions of the Endangered Species Act relating to the “taking” of animals endangered overseas, but flourishing in the United States.

An anti-hunting activist group opposed to hunting filed suit against the Interior Department seeking to outlaw the hunting of the scimitar-horned oryx, addax and the dama gazelle, and in 2012 the Interior Department complied, declaring their large and flourishing Texas populations were “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act.

Banning the hunting of an unendangered species in Texas does absolutely nothing to protect overseas endangered populations in Africa.

Banning the hunting of an unendangered species in the United States actually places overseas endangered populations in danger of extinction by removing any incentive to breed and maintain them.

Restoring the domestic hunting of these species is essential to maintaining healthy captive breeding programs if we are to restore or save them in their native Africa.