Petition to List Hippos Under the ESA

This past week, wildlife advocacy groups petitioned the U.S Fish & Wildlife Services to issue Hippos Endangered Species Act Protections after a slew of investigations demonstrated a thriving market for hippo parts in the United States. As it stands, there are only about 115, 000 adult hippos left in the wild in Africa. The U.S Fish & Wildlife Services has 90 days to respond to the petition.

Hippos face many perils to their survival including habitat loss, climate-change fueled droughts, and poaching. When they are already facing an uphill battle for their survival, the last thing we should be doing is hunting them for body parts to make stupid trinkets. The United States is in a unique position in this instance because of their ability to offer much needed protections to hippos while simultaneously tackling their own thriving hippo market. Without endangered species protections, hippos will continue to be poached for their parts, further plunging them towards inevitable extinction.

Too often do we take a too little, too late approach to conservation, which leaves extremely vulnerable species in peril of extinction. We are well aware of the perils these species are already facing in the wild and in my opinion, the ESA protections need to be issued much sooner if extinction prevention is really the ambition. The process of listing a species is already lengthy in itself without considering that we often wait until the species is so imperiled that there is very little hope. This process needs to be instigated significantly sooner if we are truly going to tackle extinction amidst the crisis that is plaguing our planet's species.

Hippos must receive ESA protections immediately and the United States must address its continued allowance of body part imports from species in Africa that face the possibility of extinction. We know how to do better and it shouldn't take years to figure that out. Issue the ESA protections to hippos before they disappear along with most of Africa's most recognized species.

HAPPY VEG