June, 2016 President:

Don Giottonini [email protected] st

1 Vice President:

Kevin Wong [email protected] 2

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Vice President:

Dan Cirillo [email protected] Secretary:

Colleen Cline

[email protected] Treasurer: Anthony Cline [email protected] Directors: Aaron Armstrong

Vance Gilley Steve Patching

Jamie Susslin Terry Whitney Paul Dal Porto Dan Birch Immediate Past President:

Ed White

A Chapter of Safari Club International Sacramento Safari .. Club PO BOX 221249 Sacramento 95822-8249 www.sacramentosafariclub.org

UPCOMING EVENTS Clay Day Shoot July 9th, 2016 Birds Landing _________________ Awards Dinner August 6th, 2016 Randy Thomas’ Home _________________ SSC Youth Hunt Sunday, October 23rd, 2016 Birds Landing

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR SPONSORS

SSC PRESIDENT AND TREASURER ATTEND SCI BOARD MEETING IN WASHINGTON DC

The weather felt more like Washington state than Washington D.C. when SCI leadership arrived in the nation’s capital for this year’s May board meeting. Cool temps and persistent rain dampened the marble monuments, but they did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of hundreds of members of SCI leadership, which included Don Giottonini the Sacramento Chapter President and Tony Cline, who had traveled from far and wide to amplify the voice of hunters on Capitol Hill. The timing was perfect. The Senate had just delivered a victory for hunters by passing key elements of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act in the weeks prior to the SCI meeting. But the victory was incomplete – the House and Senate still needed to reconcile the differences between their respective versions of the bill. That sounds simple enough, but in this case the undertaking is laden with dozens of underlying questions about how to proceed. The morning started with Jeff Crane, the president of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. Crane outlined the status of negotiations over the Sportsmen’s Act, and explained some of the intricacies to the assembled audience. The overall question is whether to keep the Sportsmen’s Act provisions married to the energy bill that provided a vehicle for passage in the Senate, and the consensus opinion of the many stakeholders is yes, we should attempt to keep the provisions that are important to sportsmen tied to some form of energy legislation, to increase the chances that the entire package will be signed by the president. From the SCI perspective, those attending Hill meetings were asked to urge their Members to press for inclusion of several important provisions that were passed in the House version, but absent from the Senate bill. These include: 

A provision to restore the final delisting rules for gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes and Wyoming,

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A provision to allow the importation of polar bears legally hunted before the 2008 “threatened” listing, A provision to allow for importation and continued legal trade of legally procured ivory and; A provision to force the National Park Service to withdraw its onerous final rule governing hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska.

The overall goal of these requests is to speed the Congress into negotiating a final version, making sure it includes all of the important provisions passed by the House, and then sent to the president to force him to either stand with hunters, or explain his opposition to these commonsense reforms. Bethany Marcum Alaska provided a kickoff for another discussion focused on several examples of increasing overreach by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. FWS is attempting to impose its will on state wildlife regulators in Alaska by prohibiting several forms of hunting authorized by Alaska’s state game agency. The FWS regulations propose to restrict hunting that it considers to be “predator management,” but their proposals would undermine the ability of the state to manage species outside of national wildlife refuges, because neither predator nor prey observe the boundaries of federal government lands. The FWS regulations would also force the state to ignore its own state laws that mandate both the sustainable management of all species, and ensuring that hunters have sufficient game to hunt.

Overreach by the FWS is not limited to the lands within the U.S. Other examples include the mismanagement of importation rules for African lions and elephants, subjects that have been amply covered in these pages before. SCI members were directed to ask their representatives to come together in questioning the service via letters and oversight hearings. Should those corrective measures not provide relief, members of Congress were asked to consider legislation to definitively end the Service’s inappropriate exercise of authority beyond that granted to it by statute. The final feature of the briefing offered insights on how to use social media, a subject of growing interest to SCI members who find themselves under immediate, focused online attack by a global cabal of anti-hunting zealots for acts as simple as posing pictures of a successful hunt. The tips in the briefing focused on how to spotlight SCI’s Lobby Day Activities with dedicated postings, in order to expose the SCI mission to an audience far beyond the few square blocks of Capitol Hill. And with that, hundreds of SCI members decamped en masse to flood Capitol Hill. The California contingent which consisted of Don, Tony and Orville Hudspeth, the California Regional Repetitive for SCI, met with seven of our states representative’s staff from both House and Senate offices, and returned to the debriefing session with feedback from their discussions, along with requests for assorted follow-up with offices to be conducted by the SCI staff team in Washington.

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TANZANIA SUSPENDS EXPORTATION OF CITES LISTED HUNTING TROPHIES Article from SCI, May 17th, 2016 Last week SCI confirmed that Tanzania has suspended the exportation of all CITES listed hunting trophies. It is SCI’s understanding that the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism has taken this action based on a situation internal to the Tanzanian government. It is important to note that: 1) this export suspension does not apply to species for which CITES export permits are not required and 2) the suspension is not an anti-hunting ban. Presently, SCI does not have information about the duration of the suspension. It is our sincere hope that this suspension is temporary and that it will quickly be resolved. SCI is working with the Tanzania Hunting Outfitters Association (TAHOA) to promptly address this problem. However, if you have a hunt planned in Tanzania, we encourage you to contact your outfitter prior to undertaking that hunt. Hunting plays an important role in the conservation of the wildlife in Tanzania, as it does throughout Africa. Hunters bring revenue into local communities, generate jobs and increase the value of wildlife species. Hunting businesses contribute to local economies and employ patrols that discourage poaching. Bans on the import and/or export of hunting trophies discourage hunters and undermine the important conservation benefits of hunting. SCI will remain actively engaged on the issue of importing and exporting CITES listed trophies from Tanzania and will provide updates as they become available. SCI’s Department of Hunter Advocacy will continue our efforts to fight importation and exportation bans, ensure that hunters have access to hunting opportunities and work to prevent overreach of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) concerning the sustainable hunting of foreign wildlife species. SCI is actively engaged on both the policy and litigation fronts on these important issues. Just this month SCI members came to Washington, D.C. to lobby their members of Congress to pressure the FWS to issue permits for the importation of lions from Tanzania and other African countries. We are pursuing litigation in federal court that challenges a ban imposed by the U.S. government on the importation of legally hunted elephants from Tanzania and Zimbabwe. SCI continues to work on several fronts to protect the rights and opportunities of hunters throughout the globe, including SCI members’ ability to continue to export their legally hunted wildlife from Africa and to import their trophies into their home countries. Please continue to monitor your SCI communications and the SCI Hunter Advocacy website for future developments on this important Tanzania trophy export issue. Please forward any information you may learn to [email protected].

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PHOTOGRAPHERS NEEDED FOR SSC EVENTS The chapter is in need of professional photographers to take pictures at our events for the newsletter and website. If anyone is interested, please contact us at [email protected] for arrangements. *

RANDY THOMAS SCORES MASSIVE CROCODILE

Congratulations to SSC member Randy Thomas for getting this monster! The crocodile was taken on 444,000 acres in South Eastern Zimbabwe. The Professional Hunter was Rex Hoeps with Chifuti Safaris. For those who have not seen Randy’s inspiring trophy room, it’s a must see! You will have the chance by attending the Awards Dinner in August. Be sure to ask him on how he landed this big guy and other African adventures the night of August 6th in Lodi. Again, you must RSVP to Kevin Wong at [email protected] or 916-372-8663. Anyone entering trophies for awards must submit their measurements no later than July 24th. If you need a Measurer, you can contact and of the four that were listed on the postcard that was mailed in May.

YOUTH SHOOTER GETS SPOTLIGHT IN HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK

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DON’T FORGET CLAY DAY!! Our 27th Annual Clay Day Shoot will be on Saturday, July 9th at Birds Landing Hunting Preserve. Entry fee is $99. Mulligans are $10. Send in the below entry form and prepay your entry to avoid the long check-in lines!

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LIFE MEMBERSHIP PROMOTION Between now and June 30th anyone who signs up for a Life membership for SCI (National) will receive a $500 Cabela’s gift certificate. This pertains to new members and upgrades.

For the local chapter, we are also offering a SSC Life membership for $150 (half price) between now and June 30th. Note: members must already be a Life member of SCI National to qualify for this. For the SSC Local Chapter promo, you can upgrade by purchasing through our website at www.sacramentosafariclub.org or send in a check postdated between now and June 30th .