Thank you for contacting me about The Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill.
Over the years, I have received many hundreds of emails from constituents about trophy hunting. This is a highly emotive issue and I appreciate the depth of your concerns for the welfare of animals and wildlife.
I have a personal interest, through the work of my father in Yemen and Oman in the 1960s. While he was based in the region with the Trucial Oman Scouts, he became involved in the effort to record and save the Arabian oryx. This beautiful animal was once common across the middle east from Sinai to Iraq and on the Arabian peninsula. Gradually, the oryx was hunted to extinction across the wider middle east. The Arabian oryx was prized as a trophy for its fine horns and, even as the programme was beginning its work in 1961, the herd of the oryx in the empty quarter was subject to a major hunting expedition. Hunters from Qatar and the Emirates killed off many of them for trophies. Until the early 1960s, it remained only in the Rub’ al Khali—the empty quarter—across the boundaries of Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia. However, a programme was put together to rescue the remaining animals and establish a breeding programme at Phoenix Zoo in the USA. Had the programme not been successful in locating and taking some oryx to safety, it would have been extinct immediately. This was the modern effort to save a species from extinction and I am pleased that my father, with his colleagues, had a role in getting it underway.
Therefore, I have been very outspoken about this issue in my time in Parliament. You can read my watch one of my previous speeches on the topic here: Flick Drummond MP speaks on the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill. 25/11/22 - YouTube
I have supported the previous Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament and I will follow this one with great interest.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
