California State Senator Henry Stern has announced plans to take legislative action in preventing people from owning elephant trophies in California. In a statement from his office, Stern is working with “a coalition of national and statewide animal activists” to come up with a legislation.
This comes on the heels of an announcement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would let certain hunting trophies once more legally enter the United States. On its website, a brief statement reads: “In response to a recent D.C. Circuit opinion, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is revising its procedure for assessing applications to import certain hunted species … the Service intends to make findings for trophy imports on an application-by-application basis.”
The California senator hopes to explore multiple plans, with an end goal of preventing the import of endangered species.
Stern said, “Unlike Washington, D.C., in California, we recognize endangered animals as treasures to be protected, not trophies to be mounted.”