Dub Wallace Ranch Wants to Kill Endangered Animals: PETA Says No Way

PETA Calls On Feds to Stop Giving Out Permits in Exchange for Shady Donations That Help Hunters, Not Animals

For Immediate Release:
June 19, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

PETA has submitted formal comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in opposition to an application from Sonora-based canned-hunting ranch Dub Wallace Ranch in Sonora, which is seeking permits to breed and kill endangered antelope.

The Endangered Species Act prohibits killing protected animals and makes exceptions only in extremely rare circumstances that will directly help the species in the wild—but under its much-criticized “pay-to-play” scheme, the FWS has issued permits in exchange for trivial donations to pseudo-conservation organizations. Dub Wallace Ranch seeks these permits on the basis of donating 10 percent of the profits from each animal’s death to Conservation Force, a group that lobbies to protect hunters and helps them obtain the permits needed to breed and kill endangered animals—i.e., the permits Dub Wallace Ranch is seeking.

“Gunning down confined, terrified animals might give hunters sick kicks, but it doesn’t help imperiled wild animals,” says PETA Foundation Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA is calling on federal authorities not to allow Dub Wallace Ranch to kill endangered antelope on the basis of paltry donations to any organization, let alone one that exists only to keep hunters in business.”

Late last year, the FWS came under fire for using “pay-to-play” to reauthorize the imports of elephant “trophies” from Zimbabwe and Zambia, but for years, the agency has been using it to allow the exploitation and slaughter of the very animals it’s charged with protecting, including at dozens of canned-hunting facilities in Texas.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way.” For more information, please visit PETA.org.