California is Poised to Becomes the First State to Ban the Bullhook and the Third State to Ban the Trade of Ivory and Rhino Horn!

As of this afternoon, we still have not gotten word that Governor Jerry Brown has signed either of the two critical bills for elephant protection that have made their way out of the legislature and over to his desk. He has until Sunday, October 11th (on the 30 day clock) to sign or ignore them, allowing them to become laws without his signature. Alternatively, he could veto one or both of them, though we desperately hope this won’t be the case.

For miserable and tormented captive elephants who are forced to perform demeaning tricks and give rides against their will, there is SB 716, the bill that bans the use of the bullhook. California will be the first state in the nation to implement such a historic law. Bullhooks are weapons used to control elephants. Without their use, circuses cannot control their unwilling performers, so a bullhook ban is essentially an “elephants performing in the circus” ban.

Then, on behalf of wild elephants everywhere around the world being heartlessly hacked apart for their tusks, and for rhinos suffering the same injustice for their horns, AB 96 is the law that will finally, fully prohibit the sale of ivory and rhino horn of unknown origin in California.

As the third state to implement such a law and as a key ivory consumer state, California will set a model for other states to follow. State efforts to regulate in-state sales complement recent federal efforts to crack down on the import, export and inter-state smuggling of ivory and rhino products.

What You Can Do:

If you live in California, please call Governor Jerry Brown and contact him through his web submit form about both bills. Both our alerts for both bills can be found on our Facebook page here and here. If you do not have a Facebook account, you can view the alerts here and here. Please, if you live in California, take the action steps listed, and no matter where you live, please share with everyone you know in California, and let’s make history for elephants and rhinos together. We will keep you posted on the results of all your hard work.