US Fish & Wildlife Service Update on Argali Permitting and Other Range Country Species

US Fish & Wildlife Service Update on Argali Permitting and Other Range Country Species By Gray N. Thornton WSF President & CEO The Wild Sheep Foundation and our industry partners Dallas Safari Club, Conservation Force, Grand Slam Club/Ovis, Houston Safari, and Safari Club International, were brought together with leaders of the US Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) by the Congressional Sportsman Foundation in late July for a round table discussion & Teams call on our collective concerns on permit denials and delays which could negatively impact more the $1 Billion legal and sustainable wildlife trade from range countries to the USA.

The Service advised our community that there are 145 combined Argali permits pending in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan and another 146 in Tajikistan. The Mongolian permits will be approved as the USFWS reviews Mongolian Government-approved management plans. Mongolia requires that each concession has a Argali management plan, and their government ranks these plans on a scale of 1-6. The Service has said that if Mongolia has ranked a concession’s management plans as “high” (towards six on the scale), the Service will likely issue an enhancement finding and grant a permit.

This initial July call resulted in relationship and trust building and a pledge by both the hunting/conservation community and the Service to cooperate and communicate regularly on progress made. During our follow-up call held on October 5th, our community received a comprehensive update from the Service on their actions to reduce the backlog of import permits and results to date.

WSF also gave an update to the Service leadership and our partners on a recent WSF initiative to assist range countries in Central Asia (specifically Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – Mongolia and Kazakhstan currently provide English language reporting) to provide government-certified English translations (from Russian) of their annual reports to the USFWS of their hunting, conservation, sustainable use, and community development programs to help determine positive enhancement findings thereby facilitating permits to import trophies. To this end, WSF is also committed to supporting the formation of a Central Asia wild sheep and goat working group to aid in this effort and range wide surveys.



While meeting with USFWS International Affairs leadership and staff in Washington, DC, in mid-September, we learned that a major impediment to positive enhancement findings was the difficulty the Service experiences translating range state reports from Russian to English. Our partners in the Kazakhstan Wildlife Foundation, along with other Central Asian biologists, have such assets, and we offered their services to the USFWS, which they enthusiastically accepted.

WSF went to work quickly and is building teams in range states to provide government-certified English translations to accompany the Russian language reports. This is a perfect example of creative cooperation. An issue was identified, a potential solution WSF could facilitate was offered, and we expect positive results will be soon executed.

Within 24 hours of our October 5th community call with the Service, USFWS International Affairs staff sent their promised and attached 2023 Permitting Update document to WSF and our partners. On the call, WSF was delighted to learn that positive findings for Mongolian Argali were established. WSF’s Conservation Director for International Programs, Kurt Alt was in Mongolia for part of a June-August range-wide Argali survey. Findings for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are still pending, and WSF is working with our range state partners to facilitate the English translations to support this effort. On our most recent call and our face-to-face meetings with Director Williams and her staff before this latest update, the Service was extremely appreciative of our input and efforts and was bullish on how this will improve permitting now and in the future. I can’t thank Director Williams and her staff enough. She and her team gave our community access to learn their challenges with permitting and the reasons behind their backlog and to hear our concerns and what we could bring to the table to help. They listened, and we listened, and now we have a plan.

This first update is great news. I’m damn proud of WSF, our Conservation staff, and Legislative Affairs Committee for these efforts.

View the full USFWS update, including permitting for many other species, at the link below.
FULL USFWS REPORT