One of the first companies in the League’s sights is UK travel firm Roxton Bailey Robinson for its involvement in organising ‘trophy hunting’ holidays targeting a number of endangered species. A League investigation (detailed in Wild About Killing, a new report launched with the website) reveals attempts by Roxton Bailey Robinson to conceal its trophy hunting packages by omitting all mention of them on their main website.

Ironically, one of Roxton’s directors, George Stephenson, is a trustee of the conservation group Save The Rhino – perhaps explaining the company’s reluctance to offer rhinos as trophies. No such qualms exist at Bristol-based SportingAgent.com. The League reveals that agents there will happily arrange for customers to bag an endangered rhino for a mere £40,000.

Meanwhile, in Mayfair, royal gunsmith Holland and Holland – best known for supplying shotguns to the well-heeled, including Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie – are offering clients the opportunity to kill, amongst other species, leopards (£2,500) and cheetahs (£2,000), both of which are listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) as threatened with extinction. Far from worrying about the survival chances of these animals, Holland and Holland boast that ‘in the last one hundred years it is probable that more game has been shot in Africa by visiting sportsmen and professional hunters using Holland and Holland rifles than any other make.’

John Cooper, chairman of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “It is time to shine a light on this corporate-endorsed killing. Whether it is a travel company organising trips to exotic locations for the sole purpose of allowing ‘big game punters’ to shoot wild and often endangered animals or corporate directors opting for a weekend of pheasant shooting as a ‘team building exercise’, retail slaughter must be exposed and ended.”

He added this warning: “If your company profits from cruelty to animals in the name of sport, the odds are you could be next on our list.”

Visitors to www.bloodybusiness.com are invited to e-mail the companies named to voice their disgust at this bloody business. They are also requested to e-mail the EU environment commissioner with a demand that importation into the EU of trophies from endangered species be banned.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

A full copy of Wild About Killing can be downloaded on www.bloodybusiness.com.

Since 1996, trophy hunters from the UK and other countries in the EU have been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of animals listed under CITES as at risk, endangered or bordering on extinction. A comprehensive list by EU country can be downloaded on www.bloodybusiness.com.

For more information, contact Anne Holmes on 020 7089 5218 or 07977 292 534 or e-mail  news@bloodybusiness.com.