CSUS backed African hunts

Sacramento State helped a prominent local couple get permission to hunt dozens of exotic animals in Tanzania as part of the university's drive for a now-abandoned natural history museum. The couple were prepared to donate $2.4 million toward the effort, as well as their vast menagerie of animal specimens collected in hunts around the world.

Armed with letters signed by university President Alexander Gonzalez, Sacramento auto dealer Paul Snider and his wife, Renee, went to Tanzania twice to hunt spotted serval cats, dark-faced vervet monkeys and 82 other species the university said would enhance its museum.

The Sniders needed special permission to hunt the listed animals because they were not covered under a standard Tanzanian hunting license. Three of the species were nearing or at high risk for extinction, according to the World Conservation Union, an international coalition of nations and nonprofit groups.

The letters, released in response to a Sacramento Bee public records request, shed light on a saga that encompasses the Sniders' unusual collection, campus ambitions to win big donors for big projects, and debate over the value of hunting.

Now that the museum plan has fallen apart amid campus dissent, some of the animals the Sniders hunted based on the Sacramento State letters are languishing in storage. The couple have begun to look elsewhere for a place to showcase a lifetime's collecting.

Sacramento State wasn't able to say why it wanted the 84 species it asked Tanzania to let the Sniders gather, or whether it had checked a well-known, international "red list" to determine that some were at risk of extinction.

"It's pretty surprising that (Sacramento State) asked for red-listed species," said George Wittemyer, a UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher who specializes in wildlife conservation. Wittemyer speculated that the inclusion was probably an error by the university because "no one in their right mind would do that."

Snider said Friday he had "no idea" that any of the animals his safari organizer suggested he hunt were at risk.

"We're not out to cut down on the animals that are in decline at all. A true hunter will not do that," he said.

Snider got his start as a car salesman, at one point owned nine dealerships, and now, at age 80, has scaled back to two. He has been hunting exotic game since the 1970s, assembling a collection that fills a 5,500-square-foot, museum-style annex in the couple's Elk Grove home.

In the displays, gazelles and impalas stand silhouetted against fluffy clouds in a pale blue sky. A lion sinks its teeth into a zebra's neck. Jaguars and other big cats perch on rocks or lounge in trees. Except for three baby crocodiles, every creature -- from tiny mongoose to robust wildebeest to the zebras whose pelts decorate the Sniders' barstools -- was bagged by either Paul or Renee Snider.

The collection, which numbers in the hundreds, does not stop with the annex. A polar bear shot by Renee Snider in Alaska towers in a corner of their living room. A smaller, unfurnished home on their property is filled entirely with birds and mammals, stuffed and awaiting better display. More are in storage in Africa and America.

"I just love them all," said Snider, as he walked through the collection last week, sharing tales of how shy the fierce-looking warthogs can be, how vicious the rhinos, how swift the giraffes.

It is a love of nature, he said, that lures the couple back into the wild again and again to hunt, paying fees that foster conservation.

"You have to understand that this is conservation," said Ken Schwartz, spokesman for the Safari Club International, a hunting advocacy group. "These are hunter conservationists who go out and spend their money; they take one but they want to protect the species."

An equally passionate cadre of animal lovers views big game hunting with revulsion.

"Trophy hunting is a perverse and disturbing subculture, and a public institution should not support the endeavor," said Andrew Page, who oversees hunting issues for the Humane Society of the United States.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Carrie Peyton Dahlberg can be reached at (916) 321-1086 or cpeytondahlberg@sacbee.com.