Trump administration to reverse ban on imports of elephant trophies from Africa

(Image credit: Mehdi Fedouach/AFP/Getty Images)

published 16 November 2017

The Trump administration will reverse a 2014 ban on allowing hunters to bring back to the United States trophies of elephants they killed in Zambia and Zimbabwe, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official told ABC News on Wednesday.

There is a provision in the Endangered Species Act that lets the government issue permits to import trophies if there's sufficient evidence that the hunting benefits the species, and the Fish and Wildlife official claims there is evidence coming from Zimbabwe and Zambia to support reversing the ban. The Great Elephant Census released in 2016 found that from 2007 to 2014, savanna elephant populations dropped 30 percent across 18 countries in Africa, and there are about 350,000 left in the wild.

In Zambia, the government has banned elephant hunting at various times, but in 2015, it was re-established after they determined the elephant population had grown. In Zimbabwe, poaching has long been an issue, and there is corruption in the hunting industry, Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle wrote in a blog post. "Let's be clear," he said. "Elephants are on the list of threatened species; the global community has rallied to stem the ivory trade; and now, the U.S. government is giving American trophy hunters the green light to kill them." President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., has hunted in Africa before, proudly posing for a photo with a knife in one hand and an elephant tail in the other.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox