QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:

Q:  Why do states need to take action? Aren't there Federal Regulations already? 

A:  Poaching still exists because of markets at the state level.  This is why 9 states have already taken action. Federal regulations were not designed for intrastate trade—intrastate trade being the smaller items that you see at antique shops, flea markets, and auction houses.  While smaller items with lower amounts of ivory may be minimal in a federal (import, export, interstate) context, that doesn’t mean those findings apply to retails sales at the intrastate level. Many items that contain ivory that are sold at state retail level are not solid ivory, but items that contain “de minimis” amounts of ivory (inlays, accents, etc). In other words, imports/exports/interstate items generally come in bulk, but retail items at the state level often contain smaller amounts—yet make up a robust trade when combined with all of the other states without laws on their books.Clearly, federal laws are not doing their job of preventing extinction.  Federal laws are also broad and have loopholes and only look at import/export/and interstate trade and only some species. In the case of ivory, for example, federal agents only capture 10% of ivory coming in which means 90% is seeping in and where does it wind up? At the state level. This is true for all animal species' import- simply not nearly enough agents to look through all tankers and imports at various ports of entry. Then it winds at at the state level for commercial transactions and if there are no state laws (as is the case in VT), anything goes, trade occurs, the killing is perpetuated. Also, for species like Giraffe, Trump recently denied their Appendix listing at the federal level-- and they are far worse off than even elephants. Less than 95,000 left in the world in the wild.  You can freely buy giraffe bracelets and giraffe bone gun handles which is perpetuating their slaughter. Vermont says not in our state!  

The global ramifications of extinction are huge (economic, moral, ecological) and the animals listed on H.99 and S.29 are there because they are the most HIGHLY trafficked species.This is not about what our favorite species are-- it is a bill about the animals that are being most exploited, most decimated because of greed and wildlife trafficking, the 4th largest illegal trafficking in the world. Thus, when federal laws are not "working", states have an obligation to step in. This is about the 4th largest illegal trafficking in the world! And Vermont's DUTY to do our part to stop it.   

To the argument, "But there is practically no ivory or other species' parts in the state anyway?"  Answer: GOOD! Then making this into law should be easy as it won't affect many people. We should do this and move on!  And IF we had a once-large market (like CA, Hawaii, or NY/NJ), that still shouldn't stand in the way-- as those states ALREADY took action realizing the moral obligation (putting aside their larger state marketplace) and are doing fine!  If anything, they knew they had to make the law for their large markets!  

For folks who say, "Ok, so if VT is a a small market, it won't make a big impact anyway!" To that we say, once states start closing markets, trade migrates to states with no or lax laws-- our neighbor NH has already done this... and many many states have it on the tables. The time for VT is now, to be the 11th state (not the 39th!), to support the other states that have done the right thing and to be sure WE don't become a target for increased trade b/c we don't have a law!