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Ranulph Fiennes: Get your MP to vote for trophy hunting Bill

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In a first for Inside Croydon, Sir RANULPH FIENNES, Britain’s best-known explorer, has written to this website to call on our readers to lobby all Croydon’s MPs to support a private Member’s Bill due to go before Parliament this month

A Bill is currently going through Parliament to stop British trophy hunters bringing home the bodies of the animals they kill for “fun”.

I hope readers will join me in strongly urging their local MP to vote for it.

We often think trophy hunters are just Americans like the awful dentist Walter Palmer who shot Cecil the lion. However, British trophy hunters are shooting lions, elephants, giraffes and hippos. Some British hunters have singlehandedly killed hundreds of animals.

British trophy hunters have been shooting some of the world’s most endangered animals too, including rhinos, cheetahs and polar bears.

It is time to put an end to this disgrace. Trophy hunting is vile. It is carried out by cowards who bring shame upon our nation. I cannot think of anything less British than killing an innocent, defenceless animal purely for pleasure.

A Bill is coming to Parliament on March 17 which aims to do something about it. It will stop British hunters bringing home their “souvenirs” of animal bodies, heads and skins. It has the support of both the government and opposition parties.

Time for action: trophy hunters shoot lions and other endangered species. Fiennes describes trophy hunting as ‘vile’. He says: ‘It is carried out by cowards who bring shame upon our nation’

It also has the strong backing of voters. Survation has just conducted a poll which asked voters if they thought their local MP should come to the Commons and vote for it. The results are unequivocal. Over eight out of 10 constituents want their MP to ensure this ban is put in place.

MPs are there to represent us. If readers want this Bill to become law, they should – politely but firmly – demand that their local MP go to Parliament on March 17 and vote for it.

Yours sincerely,
Sir Ranulph Fiennes

The Bill – Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill – has been presented to Parliament by Henry Smith MP. It would ban British hunters from bringing “trophies” of endangered and vulnerable animals into Britain. The legislation is being supported by the Government, but it has taken four years to reach this stage.

After the Bill’s second reading in November, Eduardo Gonçalves, the founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, said: “Some of the most popular animals shot by British trophy hunters are lions, leopards and elephants. Lions and leopards have both suffered declines of over 90 per cent since the 1970s. Elephant populations around Africa have just been upgraded to Endangered and Critically Endangered… The argument by the gun lobby that ‘killing for kicks’ is in fact ‘conservation’ is clearly nonsense.

“The outcome of this debate is historic. Britain took a big step towards implementing the world’s toughest ban on so-called hunting ‘trophies’. Henry Smith MP’s Bill is a game-changer and is already encouraging other countries such as Germany to follow suit. At a time when the world’s wildlife is in crisis, this has to be good news.”

Chris Philp, the Conservative MP for Croydon South, has told Inside Croydon, “I can confirm that I will be strongly supporting this Bill. I expect it to attract much support and become law.”

If you live in Croydon North, you can contact your MP about the trophy hunters Bill by writing to steve.reed.mp@parliament.uk.

If you live in Croydon Central and wish to contact Sarah Jones MP about the trophy hunters Bill, email her at sarah.jones.mp@parliament.uk..


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