Safari Club International (SCI) and Safari Club International Foundation (SCIF) are proud to announce their support of sustainable predator management in North America, which plays an essential role in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.
SCI and SCIF adopted this position following extensive support for research on the dynamics between large carnivores and their prey and involvement in numerous lawsuits and legislation. These issues revolve around state and federal species recovery efforts, delisting decisions for predators, states’ authority to manage wildlife, and Americans’ freedom to hunt.
SCI and SCIF have chosen to adopt a position on this issue due to the significant public interest and attention it garners–much of which has conveyed disinformation about a subject sensitive to hunters and conservationists. As government bodies across the world take a more active approach to restricting hunting, it is more important than ever to convey the truth about hunting both predator and prey species.
This position is based on respect for the importance of large carnivores in their ecosystems and the variety of wildlife values associated with these species. SCI and SCIF recognize the importance of managing predators through regulated hunting to provide a legitimate recreational opportunity and to ensure the proper management and balance of predator and prey species in individual ecosystems. Like any other species, predators are not exempt from the public trust doctrine that underlies the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. For this reason, SCI and SCIF fully support state management decisions that rely on legal, regulated hunting of predators, including the regulated hunting of large carnivore species such as wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions, and coyotes.
To ensure sustainable predator hunting remains an effective tool to manage wildlife and reduce or mitigate human-wildlife conflict, SCI and SCIF’s policy statement on predator hunting reflects a commitment to the most up-to-date science and transparent processes for quota setting, harvest objectives, population targets, and other such data.
“SCI, SCIF and those invested in the management of North America’s wildlife believe the successful recovery of predator species should be celebrated but also that these species should be managed responsibly, by states and tribes, to attain overall wildlife management and habitat protection objectives,” said SCI and SCIF CEO W. Laird Hamberlin. “SCI fully supports sustaining predator hunting as long as science-based evidence continues to reflect its efficacy and sustainability. Misguided proposals to ban predator hunting or to treat large carnivores differently than other wildlife species poses an immediate threat to the North American model of wildlife management and to the successful conservation of species that has been derived from that model for over 100 years.”
