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Exactly one week before the incoming Biden administration assumed power, the outgoing Trump administration gave the U.S. a parting “gift” that perfectly symbolized its term as a whole when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced it would be partnering with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to “assist in the education and engagement of sportsmen and shooters.” In both its timing and details, this was an outrageously hostile gesture, towards both the Biden administration and the citizens of the U.S. Please join us in urging the USFWS, now led by Biden appointees, to immediately rescind this offensive agreement.

Unsurprisingly, the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed on January 13, is extremely lopsided in favor of the NRA. The agreement is explicitly focussed on “migration corridors and movement of big game species.” In other words, the USFWS has asked the NRA to encourage the hunting of big game “trophy” animals and often protected species in the unprotected migration corridors that species use to travel in-between national parks and other protected lands.

Not one iota of this agreement has anything whatsoever to do with conservation. The USFWS's stated goal is “to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats.” But the NRA has no expertise in conservation strategies, wildlife movement, or migration corridors. Instead, its goal here is plainly on increasing gun sales and killing more protected wildlife. Moreover, this agreement would divert precious resources from the USFWS that would otherwise be devoted to high-priority conservation actions. And given the fact that we are living in the midst of an existential extinction crisis, there are no shortages of other conservation projects urgently in need of funding and support.

Neither the USFWS nor the U.S. stand to gain anything from this agreement. Quite to the contrary, both stand to lose a great deal, both in lives and in integrity.

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