If you thought Cheney’s “canned” bird hunting was distasteful, you’re really not going to like this. From On Safari in Spain, Cops Are No Match For Wealthy Hunters:
During the first half of 2005, Seprona, the environmental unit of Spain’s paramilitary Civil Guard, confiscated 678 illegally imported live animals across the country, including 44 mammals. The year before, the division snared more than 1,100 animals in addition to an array of elephant tusks, animal pelts and skins.Spain, with its shores on the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, has been a gateway into Europe for drugs, mainly from Latin America. Now, the same ports and airports are being used to smuggle live animals — and pieces like elephant tusks — from Latin America and Africa. And the penalties for doing so are small.
In November, officers from Seprona nabbed hunters skinning a Bengal tiger. During the same raid, dubbed ‘Operation Safari,’ the agents found another tiger and a lion in cages, waiting their turn to be hunted on a huge expanse of woodlands in western Spain.
Artificial safaris aren’t new. Ranches in Texas have for years legally raised their own herds of African wildlife for hunting, including large antelopes called oryx. But Spanish safaris are of a different sort. The animals aren’t raised on the huge ranches where they are hunted. Rather, they are smuggled into the country or are acquired illegally, sometimes from zoos and circuses, law-enforcement officials say. And Spain’s illegal safaris include big game such as lions and tigers.
Spain has a long and lucrative tradition in legal hunting, mainly of partridges, hares, deer, wild boar and wolves. Hunters pay daily fees or annual memberships to access licensed hunting preserves. A day of hunting deer, boar or smaller game legally in rural Spanish regions such as Extremadura, Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha can cost more than $3,500. Law-enforcement officials estimate that legal hunting generates about $2.9 billion a year, including permits, memberships in hunting clubs, gear, hotels and restaurants.
The illegal safaris attract hunters mainly from Spain, the U.S. and Britain who are willing to pay more than $30,000 in some cases for a day’s hunting, police estimate.