House votes to allow import of trophies from polar bear hunts

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to continue allowing American hunters to import the heads and hides of polar bears killed in Canada.

By a vote of 188-242, House members rejected an amendment to prohibit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from granting any more permits for importing the polar bear parts.

All five Oklahoma members of the House voted against the ban; 68 Democrats joined 174 Republicans to kill it.

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., offered the amendment to the spending bill that funds the Interior Department. He argued that polar bears are already endangered and the U.S. shouldn't condone hunting them at the same time the Fish and Wildlife Services has proposed designating them as a threatened species.

"We don't want the last polar bears to be heads and skins in dens,” Inslee said.

But Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, argued that Inslee's amendment would actually cut off funds used for conservation and management programs for polar bears.

A permit to import polar bear trophies into the United States carries a $1,000 fee that the Fish and Wildlife Service says is used "to develop and implement cooperative research and management programs to conserve polar bears in Alaska and Russia.”

And Boren, an avid hunter, said during the debate, "This is one step further in the campaign to ban hunting.

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