I made a request to Fish & Wildlife for a copy of the Have Trunk Will Travel CBW permit.
Access the supplied documents, including material from past requests, too.
The US Fish & Wildlife Service is responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act. As part of this Act, an individual or organization that wants to use captive bred endangered species must apply for a CBW permit.
The Service provides a fact sheet that goes into more details on the ESA and the permit process. One aspect of it is that public notice has to be made of the permit application, and people must be allowed to comment on the permit.
Our management of wildlife in this country is more than a little fractured. For instance, Fish & Wildlife enforces the Endangered Species Act, but delegates the welfare of captive bred wildlife to the USDA via the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). To make things more complicated, a citizen can file suit related to enforcement of the ESA, but not the AWA. So a citizen can comment on and sue about a circus elephant permit, but not necessarily how the elephant is treated in the circus.
Makes for interesting lawsuits.