The House Natural Resources Committee is considering H.R. 2245, the “Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large Animal Trophies Act” or “CECIL Act.” As the committee plans its next steps with this legislation this week, lawmakers should heed the insights of African wildlife managers like myself.

Patience Gandiwa, my executive technical adviser of international conservation affairs at ZimParks, was the only African voice to testify before the Waters, Oceans and Wildlife subcommittee hearing on this bill in July. I want to make it clear that U.S. lawmakers advocating for this legislation, to ban the importation of many big game species into the United States, are giving more credence to the baseless rhetoric of anti-hunting activists than to the carefully collected data gathered and analyzed by national wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania.