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In early March, the Trump administration quietly decided once again to allow Americans to import the body parts of African elephants shot for sport, despite his tweets decrying the practice as a “horror show.”

trump tweet horror show

President Donald Trump personally intervened in November when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first said it would lift an Obama-era ban on elephants imported from Zimbabwe and Zambia. The agency contends that encouraging wealthy big-game hunters to kill the threatened species would help raise money for conservation programs, a stance that has been widely discredited.

“Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of elephants or any other animal,” Trump tweeted in November 2017, placing the policy on hold after a public backlash to the earlier decision.

More than three months later, the federal agency overseen by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued a letter dated March 1 announcing that the importation of elephant trophies will now be approved on a “case-by-case basis.” The letter cites a December ruling in a long-running lawsuit challenging the ban filed by Safari Club International and the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association.

The advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos is stacked with trophy hunters, including some members with direct ties to President Trump and his family.

A review by The Associated Press of the backgrounds and social media posts of the 16 board members appointed by Zinke indicates they agree with his position that the best way to protect critically threatened or endangered species is by encouraging wealthy Americans to shoot them.

Neither the Interior Department nor Fish and Wildlife Service issued a media release to announce the decision, which was quickly condemned by environmental advocates.

“The Trump administration is trying to keep these crucial trophy import decisions behind closed doors, and that’s totally unacceptable,” said Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Elephants aren’t meant to be trophies, they’re meant to roam free.”

Trump’s two adult sons are trophy hunters. A photo of Donald Trump Jr. holding a knife and the bloody severed tail of an elephant he reportedly killed in Zimbabwe in 2011 has sparked outrage among animal rights activists.

 

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