To: Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney General and President Donald Trump

Tell the Obama Administration to Prosecute Endangered Species Killers

Please direct the Department of Justice to revise its self-imposed restriction on prosecutions of those who kill an endangered species and later claim to have not intended to do so.

The so-called "McKittrick Policy" ties the hands of prosecutors who could otherwise bring justice to those who violate one of our nation's most popular laws, the Endangered Species Act. Please end this policy immediately and prosecute those who kill endangered species.

Why is this important?

A little known and decades old Department of Justice policy is protecting the killers of endangered grizzly bears, whooping cranes, California condors and wolves.

The so-called "McKittrick Policy" was enacted after a Montana man gunned down a wolf and later claimed he had thought he was firing on a dog. He was prosecuted, though the Department of Justice (DOJ) later decided to accept his self-exoneration by claimed ignorance and has clung to that policy of inaction for years.

Endangered species need to be protected from hunters that can simply claim they did not know what they were shooting at.

Tell President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to drop the McKittrick Policy and treat the killing of endangered species like the crime that it is.