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8/13/26, 1:08 PM

As of: 8/12/26 4:41 AM
Received: August 03, 2026
Status: Posted
Posted: August 04, 2026
Tracking No. msd-kavc-350t
Comments Due: August 07, 2026
Submission Type: Web

PUBLIC SUBMISSION

Docket: FWS-HQ-IA-2026-1948
Agency Information Collection Activities; Federal Fish and Wildlife Permit Applications and Reports--Requirements for African Elephants
Comment On: FWS-HQ-IA-2026-1948-0001
Agency Information Collection Activities; Federal Fish and Wildlife Permit Applications and Reports--Requirements for African Elephants
Document: FWS-HQ-IA-2026-1948-0003
Comment from Lopez, Victoria

Submitter Information
Name: Victoria Lopez
Address: United States,

General Comment
Please stop allowing people to import African Elephants into this country. And please stop allowing people to kill these Elephants and other
animals to begin with. Things like drought, human-elephant conflict, hunting, disease, and poaching are some of the things that continue to
threaten the lives of these Elephants. Please check out the links below.
The following information put into brackets was taken directly from the Humane World website:
[More than two-thirds of the 2025 imports came from Botswana, which reopened to elephant trophy hunting in 2019, after a pause of five
years. The country is home to about 140,000 elephants. Local scientists have raised concerns that the country’s annual quota of more than 400
elephants is not sustainable. Since trophy hunters generally remove large mature males who are also threatened by poaching and drought,
these elephants could soon be depleted from the population, harming breeding, genetics and elephant social functioning.
“Safari Club International is pushing an exploitative proposal that threatens hard-won protections for African elephants and other iconic
species by expanding the U.S. market for trophy hunting — a market that already dominates global trophy imports of species threatened by
trade,” said Sarah Veatch, wildlife policy principal for Humane World for Animals. “SCI is actively lobbying to roll back Endangered Species
Act protections that the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized for African elephants just two years ago. If the U.S. becomes an increasingly
welcoming market for elephant trophies, it would undermine decades of work and public support to save these important, intelligent animals
from extinction.”
African elephants are complex, social animals. They work together to nurture and protect their babies, they learn from the experience of
elders, and they depend on each other to thrive.
Trophy hunters pose a substantive threat to the limited population of "super tuskers,” male elephants with tusks weighing 100 pounds or more,
who in recent years have been shot down for trophies in the famed Greater Amboseli-West Kilimanjaro ecosystem on the border of Kenya and
Tanzania. A no-hunting agreement for the region among Tanzania hunters had previously been in place since 1994. This is the longest-studied
elephant population on Earth, and it has one of the largest remaining collections of super tuskers with some 20-25 mature bulls. Scientists
think there are only around 50 super tuskers left in all of Africa.]
These Elephants need protection and these animals are more valuable alive than dead. People don't need to be making these animals into
trophies, and they don't need to be killing these animals to begin with. Please stop tolerating the killings of these Elephants. And please stop
granting permits to people who kill animals and want to import the dead animals into this country. Elephants deserve better and should not be
treated as trophies. Animals are not trophies. Animals are majestic, living, sentient beings. The good Lord did not make these animals to be
killed and used as some trophy. Please protect all these Elephants from destruction.
Links:
https://elephantswithoutborders.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2025-EWB-Hunting_Report-Web-compressed.pdf
https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/international/pdfs/Elephant-trophy-trade-case-study-Spring-2026-4-30-2026.pdf
https://www.humaneworld.org/en/news/elephant-trophy-imports-soar-trump-second-term

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