Official tied to commercial breeding to represent US at global wildlife trade meeting

Jenifer Chatfield, a high-ranking U.S. official whose family breeds wild animals for profit, will reportedly lead the U.S. delegation attending next week’s meeting of CITES, the global wildlife treaty, in Geneva, Switzerland, multiple sources told Mongabay.

Chatfield, who serves as the Department of the Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, is expected to attend the 34th meeting of the CITES Animals Committee, scheduled July 13-17.

Sources, who wished to remain anonymous because of the fraught political climate in the U.S., informed Mongabay that Chatfield will participate as one of the six-member delegation attending the Animals Committee and Plants Committee meeting. These two scientific advisory bodies evaluate biological and taxonomic information about various animal and plant species to help CITES regulate international trade in endangered species. The committees meet twice between the every-three-year Conference of the Parties, which gathers all CITES signatories to vote on proposals.

Chatfield, a board-certified veterinarian, appointed to her position in May 2025 by the second administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, will be leading a delegation of five scientists and another staff member from the U.S. Department of State, Mongabay has learned. This would be the first time such a delegation would be headed by a political appointee rather than a biologist well-versed in the sciences of conservation and taxonomy.

“Usually, it is the chief of the U.S. CITES Scientific Authority who is the head of delegation,” said Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy at the U.S.-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Society. From the early 1900s until 2001, Lieberman served as the head of the CITES Scientific Authority, a top U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service role that determines whether trade in a species could harm its survival in the wild.

The delegation also typically includes staff from the U.S. CITES Management Authority, which oversees how CITES rules are implemented and issues import and export permits for listed species of plants and animals.

“In my memory, I’ve never seen the Animals Committee be attended by political appointees,” Lieberman said. “The way it’s set up is the members of the committee are not political. They’re supposed to be scientists who are experts in their field. The Standing Committee is more policy-oriented and often political.” The Standing Committee provides policy guidance to the Secretariat on implementing the treaty regulations.

Sources told Mongabay that the current delegation is sending just three scientists to the Animals Committee meeting accompanying Chatfield: Monica Horton from the Scientific Authority, Michelle Turton from the Management Authority and Thomas Leuteritz, who heads the USFWS Conservation and Science Policy Branch. Since Leuteritz would also be serving as the vice chair of the Animals Committee, he’d be unable to speak on behalf of the U.S. at the meeting, sources said.

Mongabay contacted USFWS and the Department of the Interior, requesting information about the delegation members, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Typical U.S. delegations to the Animals Committee meetings in the past have consisted of around five or six people, Lieberman said.

A smaller delegation will make it difficult for the U.S. to participate in all the simultaneous working group meetings on various trade-related topics and side events, which could be of consequence. Meanwhile, Chatfield is a veterinarian, not a professional with the necessary conservation expertise.

The global wildlife trade is a highly profitable industry. The legal trade is worth at least $220 billion annually, selling nearly 70,000 species worldwide, according to CITES; the illegal trade is estimated at up to $20 billion by INTERPOL, though it’s impossible to obtain an accurate estimate of criminal activity of any kind.

Conflict of interest concerns with Chatfield at the helm

Because she has vested interests in the captive wildlife breeding industry, there’s concern that Chatfield could undermine conservation at the upcoming CITES meeting, possibly prioritizing profits from the wildlife industry by favoring loosened regulations, sources told Mongabay.

One of the agenda items being discussed at the upcoming meeting is captive wildlife breeding.

Chatfield has worked in the captive-bred wildlife industry as a veterinarian for her family’s Florida-based 4J Conservation Center, a commercial facility that breeds critically endangered red ruffed lemurs (Varecia rubra) and black-and-white ruffed lemurs (Varecia variegata) — both species native to the rainforests of Madagascar.

She faces allegations of using her position as a wildlife regulator to intervene in decisions that have helped facilities that breed wildlife, including her family’s.

In a letter dated April 10, 2026, members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources called on the Office of the Inspector General to launch an investigation to determine whether Chatfield “has violated federal ethics rules and/or federal law” because “she appears to be involving herself in decisions that would directly benefit her family business and those of her allies.” That office is an independent oversight agency within the Department of the Interior.

Chatfield was initially appointed as a senior adviser at the Department of the Interior by the second Trump administration and was promoted to her current position overseeing the USFWS and National Park Service in December of that year. Neither appointment was announced publicly, the letter said.

Chatfield’s association with the Trump administration goes back to 2018, when she was appointed to the controversial, tax-funded International Wildlife Conservation Council. The council, rife with trophy hunters, safari hunting guides, reality TV stars and members from the gun industry, was disbanded in 2020, after facing a federal lawsuit that called it “an assemblage of trophy-hunting advocates” that promoted international big game hunting.

4J Conservation Center is not open to the public. As a captive-animal facility, it’s licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has long been accused of poor oversight, with investigations and safety standards dropping dramatically under the Trump administration, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. The facility was cited in 2015 for housing some of its lemurs in enclosures that posed a risk of injury, according to a USDA inspection document seen by Mongabay.

4J is located in Dade City, Florida. Annual reports from 2025 filed by the company indicate Chatfield’s father, John, as the President, her mother, Jeri, as the Vice President; and her twin brother, Jason, as the Treasurer, and Chatfield as Secretary. An amended report filed later in 2025 does not list Jenifer Chatfield. However, she is listed as a veterinarian there, according to public documents filed by 4J Conservation Center with USFWS, the agency tasked with issuing and renewing captive wildlife breeding permits involving endangered species.

Chatfield was associated with her family’s captive breeding facility as late as 2025, signing as “veterinarian-in-charge” on certificates attesting that live lemurs are eligible for export, according to documents obtained by Mongabay. She’s listed as “consulting veterinarian” in other set of documents filed to obtain permits to export lemurs to Mozambique.

A recent New York Times investigation revealed how Chatfield used her position as a high-ranking official at USFWS to swiftly advance her family’s captive-breeding permit. It took her “one day to approve the notice for 4J,” the investigation found, while on average these applications take 12 working days.

The investigation also revealed how Chatfield proposed a drastic reduction in USFWS fees for captive breeding of U.S. Endangered Species Act-listed species — that would change fees from $100 for each renewal to a one-time fee of $100. She argued that it “reduces paperwork and costs for regulated entities (particularly small breeders, zoos and conservation programs),” according to documents reviewed by the Times.

The Office of the Inspector General’s investigation is ongoing, a spokesperson for the House Natural Resources Committee Democrats confirmed to Mongabay in an email.

A checkered history of wildlife trade associated with 4J

4J Conservation Center exports its lemurs to breeding facilities internationally, with documented shipments to the Philippines, United Arab Emirates and Mozambique, according to sources who Mongabay spoke to.

Public documents submitted as part of its permit renewal application and reviewed by Mongabay show that in March 2025, 4J Conservation Center self-reported a few transactions involving lemurs as “sale”: four female and four male red ruffed lemurs, and three female and three male black-and-white ruffed lemurs were sold to KHA Breeding Farm in Dubai, UAE. In 2023, six of each lemur species were self-reported by 4J Conservation Center in its annual inventory as “export” to Avilon Zoo in the Philippines.

Both species are critically endangered, and all lemurs have CITES’ highest trade protections, Appendix I. Their international commercial trade is banned. But CITES permits granted for the UAE exports, obtained by Mongabay, state the animals are being sent for breeding in captivity for conservation, under purpose code ‘B’.

“That purpose code is often misused,” Lieberman said, in the context of Appendix I species. “Sometimes commercial transactions that should be listed as ‘commercial’ under purpose codes are listed as ‘breeding,’ but that should be part of a conservation breeding program. Also, if the breeding is for commercial purposes, then any international trade should not be allowed under CITES, unless it’s a CITES-registered facility.” KHA Breeding Farm is not registered with CITES, and is not known to be associated with any lemur conservation breeding programs.

It’s not clear what the permits declared the exports to the Philippines as.

Political appointees at scientific meetings ‘undermine’ science

Attendees at the upcoming meeting are likely to discuss Canada’s request to register a captive-breeding facility for two endangered iguana species endemic to Fiji: the central Fijian banded iguana (Brachylophus bulabula) and the Lau banded iguana (Brachylophus fasciatus). They have the highest trade protections under Appendix I, so any facility breeding them commercially must be registered with CITES.

Documents reviewed by Mongabay show that the U.S. CITES Management Authority opposed Canada’s request in February 2025, citing concerns that iguanas at the facility may have been illegally poached from the wild. Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Australia and New Zealand also all opposed this breeding facility.

Then, on Jan. 20, 2026, an industry group lobbied the U.S. CITES Management Authority and Chatfield, requesting that the U.S. withdraw its objection. In a letter, the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers said, “The United States should not act as a puppet to the unsubstantiated claims of foreign nations,” adding that the decision is not in the “best interests of our citizens, our trade interests.”

Sources told Mongabay that with Chatfield heading the delegation, they expect the U.S. to withdraw its objection at the upcoming Animals Committee meeting.

“I’ll be the last one to say there’s never been political interference in some countries, but the U.S. has always stood for the integrity of the convention and the scientific integrity of the convention,” one expert in CITES-related issues. A political appointee such as Chatfield, with ties to captive wildlife breeding, heading the U.S. delegation “undermines that completely, and I think it undermines science,” they said.

Banner image: The red ruffed lemur is a critically endangered species native to Madagascar’s rainforests. Image by Daniel Branch via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Spoorthy Raman is a staff writer at Mongabay, covering all things wild with a special focus on lesser-known wildlife, the wildlife trade, and environmental crime.

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