Tell the Country of Georgia: Save Your Endangered Species!
The beautiful and elegant West Caucasian tur exists only in the western half of the Caucasus Mountains. Yet recently, a Georgian "tourism" company gave a presentation in Las Vegas encouraging Americans to come to Georgia and hunt it, along with other endangered animal species, including the brown bear and caucasian grouse.
An article in the Moscow Times says this is business as usual in Georgia, where animals on the IUCN red list are more likely to be poached than protected.
It's clear that Georgia's lawmakers have enabled a few profiteers to make a quick killing that absolutely jeopardizes Georgia's future eco-tourism industry as a whole.
Last year, the authority of Georgia's Environmental Protection Industry was handed over to the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry which has, as its commission, economic development, not protection of natural resources.
Tell Georgia's Parliament to recommission the Environmental Protection Ministry and to protect its country's endangered species!
We the undersigned are outraged that a private hunting company from your company recently attempted to lure hunters from the United States to shoot your country's endangered species including the black bear, the caucasian grouse and the caucasian tur. We ask that you do a better--MUCH better--job of enforcing endangered species regulations. You need to recommission your Environmental Protection Ministry and give it a viable budget to protect natural resources. Doing so will not only protect the animals of which you are the stewards, but also protect the future of your eco-tourism industry.
