On Monday, Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson endorsed a petition urging the present day Beach Boys band to cancel their performance at a hunting convention in Reno, Nevada where Donald Trump Jr. will be the keynote speaker.
Wilson posted a picture of Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric on Twitter, accompanied by the caption, “’It has been brought to my attention that on Wednesday February 5, The Beach Boys touring group licensed by Mike Love are headlining at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, Nevada. This organization supports trophy hunting, which both Al and I are emphatically opposed to. There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition at,” then links to the petition.
“Al” was a reference to Beach Boys co-founder Al Jardine.
It has been brought to my attention that on Wednesday February 5, The Beach Boys touring group licensed by Mike Love are headlining at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, Nevada…
— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilsonLive) February 3, 2020
This organization supports trophy hunting, which Both Al and I are emphatically opposed to. There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition at https://t.co/vOUtJDq6t2
— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilsonLive) February 3, 2020
The Safari Club International Convention is scheduled to feature the Beach Boys on Wednesday; Mike Love, one of the other founders of the band, will perform alongside longtime member Bruce Johnston.
Trump Jr. will auction off a trip to Alaska for someone to hunt deer and duck with him and his son. The auction prize is described thus:
Donald Trump Jr and Master Guide Keegan McCarthy, owner of Coastal Alaska Adventures, are proud to launch the “Hunter Heritage Series.” This exciting new program is designed to bring youth/new hunters into the field and experience the essence of what we love. Together we recognize the need to improve access to young hunters and create opportunity and excitement around getting them into the field. Through this program we look to share the true hunting experience with the next generation.
The petition states:
The Safari Club International convention is the world’s biggest wildlife killing market – a staggering 870 companies will be selling trophy hunting holidays and wildlife body parts including animal heads this year. The Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting predicts that US hunters will shoot an estimated 20,000 animals from protected species this year. Most trophy hunts are sold at these conventions.
Trophies traded by American hunters in the past decade include endangered right whales, Hawksbill turtles, Bald eagles, chimpanzees, sloth bears and grey parrots. Previous SCI Conventions have seen companies selling ‘canned lion’ hunts – where tame lions are bred and shot in enclosures for low-cost trophies – as well as illegal wildlife body parts for trinkets and furniture, including benches made from elephant skin, paintings on elephant ears, a hippo skull table, and shark skin belts.
Safari Club International has spent an astonishing $140 million since 2000 lobbying against laws to stop trophy hunting – or what it calls “protecting the freedom to hunt”…
Then the petition states:
Dear Beach Boys Manager Elliott Lott,
We the undersigned pledge to stop buying or downloading all Beach Boys music, going to Beach Boys concerts, and purchasing any Beach Boys merchandise until the Beach Boys withdraw from the SCI Convention and publicly state their opposition to this sick “sport” of killing animals for “fun.”
We will call on the Beach Boys’ record label, agent and publicists to disown the Beach Boys, and on members of the public to protest at forthcoming Beach Boys concerts, unless they do so.
The hunting convention may be the largest of its kind in the world.