President Donald Trump has delivered yet again for the free market, and environmentalists are crying foul. Trump intends to reverse an Obama-era ban of African elephant trophies, allowing the free market to function and giving more liberty to American hunters.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced yesterday that it intends to allow American hunters to bring back the heads of elephants as trophies from the countries of Zimbabwe and Zambia to “enhance the survival of the species in the wild.”
“Legal, well-regulated sport hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation,” an FWS spokesman said in a press release.
Elephants who were killed between the date of Jan. 21 and the end of 2018 will be allowed to be imported into the states as trophies under newly proposed Trump administration rules. Predictably, this has left-wing environmentalists whining and crying about this supposed injustice.
“Let’s be clear: 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,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said in a blog.
“I‘m shocked and outraged,” Elly Pepper, a deputy director of the National Resources Defense Counsel, said to Reuters during a phone interview. “I expect nothing less from our president, and if he thinks this is going to go down without a fight, he’s wrong.”
“Nothing justifies killing harmless animals to use its parts only as material goods, decoration or even worse as a trophy to satisfy someone’s ego or pride,” model and actress Gisele Bundchen said in a Tweet. “If we want a better future, we must take care of the wildlife. When you hurt one species you are hurting them all, including us humans.”
While the celebrities and the special interests whine, other observers note that removing the ban on these controversial trophies may actually help boost the population of African elephants in the long run.
“A 2001 paper published in Science points to how legalizing trophy hunting in Zimbabwe has “doubled the area of the country under wildlife management relative to the 13% in state protected areas,” since the program at the time included private lands,” Neel Patel said in a Slate editorial.
“And considering how an elephant trophy fee could be anywhere from $4,000 to $18,500, the potential for revenue generated by trophy import permits could be a massive boon to both conservation projects and local communities alike,” Patel said.
The long-term impacts of these proposed changes remain to be seen, but in the interim, American hunters are ecstatic about the additional rights that they are receiving due to Trump’s decision. Free-market conservatives and libertarians alike ought to be cheering about this news.
UPDATE: Trump is now reconsidering the ban, per this tweet released Friday night:
They had to correct this today on Yahoo news. The Ban HAS NOT BEEN lifted.
As a Libertarian- bull$hit!!!!
Hello!!!! The ban was not lifted it was an incorrect report
I just sent an email to the White house email address. I gave my reasons, stated that I am a Trump supporter and ask that they never reverse this ban. I suggest we all take 3 minutes and do the same.
Trump has backpedaled.
Almost no one supports killing elephants, including me.
Reimposed it apparently.
Not liking this, at all! The only reason to hunt is to EAT what you kill!
Irresponsible. All this does is tell those who poach them that it is ok to slaughter and they WILL because they see it as a source of income. There aren’t that many elephants in the world to sustain that.
WRONG!
The people from that area benefit from rich Americans hunting Elephants. They get the money and the meat! They also regulate how many are taken! Liberals should just sit back and smoke their dope!
I am a Trump supporter but I am totally against this.
Me to !
The federal wildlife department is the one that lifted the ban on trophies. And the liberal media has created propaganda, making it look as though Trump did this himself. The president of the United States has no authority to do this.
Now everyone’s confused, because Trump has vocalized his objection to Dee’s trophies being brought into the country and is now trying to get the wildlife department to NOT allow them into the country. He has to work with them to get this done. He can’t order them to do anything.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/11/19/trump-calls-elephant-hunting-a-horror-show-and-suggests-hell-enforce-a-ban-on-trophy-imports/?sw_bypass=true&utm_term=.3f69001b4cc7
The ban is stupid.