For anyone who lives in the USA – this is a very important wildlife Action Alert. I hope that you will take a few minutes to contact your Senator to ask them to oppose The SHARE Act or Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act.

The SHARE Act (H.R.2406) revises a variety of existing programs to expand access to, and opportunities for, hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting. This is backed by the NRA as well as Safari Club International and will be devastating to already vulnerable wildlife. Among other things it will open up land to hunters where currently no hunting or trapping is allowed.

The SHARE Act – When ‘Sharing is not Caring’

Animals 24/7 “The National Rifle Association, Safari Club International, and allied hunting industry lobbyists on February 26, 2016 advanced closer than ever before, in eight years of trying, to push through Congress an omnibus package of special favors for trophy hunters, pack hunters, ivory dealers, and users of lead ammunition…The SHARE Act provides enhanced access to public lands while limiting punitive regulations promoted by ‘animal rights’ extremists. The bill now heads to the U.S. Senate.”

Elephants Family – Amboseli national park, south Kenya. – Image Benh LIEU SONG – Flickr

Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, writes in the Huffington Post that the “SHARE Act is not at all about sharing or any sort of peaceful coexistence, but rather about killing an increasing number of nonhuman animals (animals) in places where they should be and have been relatively safe, namely, on public lands. The Act also allows the use of traditional ammunition, containing lead, which of course is bad for the environment.”

“Why is protecting animals ‘extreme,’ while wanting to kill them is not?” – Marc Bekoff

Marc Bekoff goes on to say that enjoying the great outdoors does not need to involve killing and there has to be some areas where “animals can live in peace and safety and where people who frequent these areas can also enjoy nature in peace and safety.”

The SHARE Act is a death sentence for countless animals and is bad for the environment.

Image – Wikipedia

From the Animal Welfare Institute some of the provisions included in the bill:

• Prevent the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Agriculture from regulating lead—a potent and dangerous neurotoxin—in fishing tackle and ammunition. An estimated 10-20 million animals die from lead poisoning each year in the United States after ingesting lead shot, bullet fragments, and sport fishing waste.
• Take the unprecedented step of defining trapping as a form of hunting. This would open up more federal lands to the setting of steel-jaw leghold traps and other body-gripping traps that pose grave risks to public safety, wildlife, and even companion animals.
• Declare that millions of acres of public lands are automatically open to hunting and trapping without any scrutiny. Public land managers seeking to disallow these activities in order to protect wildlife, habitat, and the public would face huge bureaucratic hurdles.
• Compel the National Park Service to allow private hunters to shoot bison in Grand Canyon National Park as part of its management plan.
• Halt the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s efforts to protect elephants from poaching and to curb the demand for ivory.
• Allow the importation of polar bear carcasses. This provision rewards hunters who raced to kill polar bears for trophies before their listing under the Endangered Species Act. Granting waivers such as this sets a dangerous precedent and signals to trophy hunters that they can flout the law.

Polar Bear in Churchill Canada – Image Wikimedia Commons

There is still time and hope, please share with family and friends to help wildlife. Ask your Senator to oppose the SHARE Act today. Find and contact your U.S Senator HERE

For more on the SHARE Act please read “U.S. House Gives Stocking Full of Gifts to Most Extreme Factions of the Hunting Lobby“