There’s no sign of big game in the lobby at Sikorski Sausages, just a bunch of antique sausage grinders artfully displayed on the wall.

But the owners of the London meat company, Marek Sikorski and his son, Peter, have found themselves in a bit of a squeeze after they were identified as big game hunters linked to a Montreal taxidermist fined $5,000 this week for trying to import four elephant tusks without a permit.

Months after the death of Cecil the lion put a Minnesota dentist who shot him in the crosshairs of the animal rights debate, some question why the Sikorskis would want to shoot two endangered elephants.

“It’s hard to understand what could possess somebody to spend that much money and go so far out of their way and essentially slaughter an innocent animal . . . with a high-powered weapon,” Anna Pippus of the animal-welfare group Animal Justice, which opposes trophy hunting, said Friday.

She called the $5,000 fine “a slap on the wrist.”

Peter Sikorski wasn’t talking to The Free Press on Friday, but Montreal newspaper La Presse reported he and his father, Marek Sikorski, killed one elephant each during a $150,000 safari trip to Tanzania, in east Africa, in 2011.

The men wanted to bring back the elephant ears, skin and tusks, but the ivory was intercepted by customs officials when they returned home through the Montreal aiport, LaPresse reported.

The ivory seizure was considered the largest in Canada in a decade.

“It’s a technicality,” Peter Sikorski told the newspaper, saying the needed Tanzanian paperwork was delivered before Canadian import documentation arrived.

There are only about 500,000 elephants left in Africa and their numbers are dwindling. Hunting them, however, is still permitted in some countries.

The Montreal taxidermist, Cyril D’Souza, organized the trip through his company, Out of Africa Taxidermy and Safari Operators, based in Mount Albert, Ont. He has one year to to get the required permits or the government keeps the ivory.

The Sikorskis face no charges, because the animals were killed in a legal hunt.

A receptionist at the sausage factory said that while he was at the headquarters Friday afternoon, Peter Sikorski was too busy to talk to The Free Press.

He had told La Presse that in Tanzania they “do a lot of conservation activities over there,” and that the hunt helps to protect the animals.



Peter Sikorski is shown in this file photo in the smoke room of London-based Sikorski Sausages plant.

But groups like Animal Justice, a legal organization, decry trophy hunting as cruel and outdated.

“It’s sickening, to kill an animal and to take part of their body and put it on display. I think most people find that stomach-turning,” Pippus said from Vancouver.

While ivory can be legally imported to Canada, it’s illegal to have it for the purpose of selling it if it comes from an animal killed before mid-1975.

Just nine per cent of Canadians are in favour of hunting animals for sport, a poll last year by Vancouver-based market research firm Insights West suggested.

Meanwhile, a scheduled weekend African trophy-hunting show in Vaughn was scrambling to find a new home after two venues cancelled the booking under pressure from animal activists.

The Africa Show was promoted as an opportunity for Canadians to book trips to Africa to hunt animals such as lions, leopards, elephants and hippopotamuses.

Animal Justice launched an online petition against the show and vowed to protest outside the venue.

The company organizing the show, African Events Canada, said threats from Animal Justice forced the host hotel to cancel the booking.

The show was moved to a second location, the Borgata Wedding & Event Venue, but it too pulled the plug.

“Borgata has decided to cancel our agreement with African Events Inc. African Events Inc. will no longer be using our facility to host their event,” the company posted on its Facebook page Friday afternoon.

— With files by Canadian Press

dale.carruthers@sunmedia.ca

jane.sims@sunmedia.ca