Obama's wildlife legacy is in jeopardy

President Obama's lasting legacy as a champion for exotic wildlife is in jeopardy, as lawmakers and even his supporters in the environmental community are saying his 2013 executive order on preserving wildlife has yielded questionable results.

Just after winning his second term in office, Obama issued an executive order aimed at cracking down on poaching, and even created a task force and outlined a national strategy against the practice. But some, like Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, are asking if the White House plan goes beyond words on a piece of paper.

"There is a lot of talk about plans, but the subcommittee needs to hear about actions," she said during a February hearing of the appropriations panel she leads. "A common complaint is that there is very little information publicly available on what the U.S. government is doing to address the crisis."

But it's not just Republicans complaining. During a Senate hearing last summer, Save the Elephants' George Wittemyer said the Obama administration must go beyond Obama's order that the federal government take all "appropriate" action to fight wildlife trafficking.

"We haven't seen appropriations put into the most effective agents … some of those individuals in the U.S. government are very busy ... with other activities," he said. For example, the Defense Department "has a lot of responsibilities … putting wildlife on their docket in a way that they will actually engage with it is very difficult. It's No. 57 on the list and they can't get to it."