Trump administration removes obstacles to sons' trophy hunting elephants

Exactly what I predicted back in November.

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced last week that it will now consider all permits for importing elephant trophies from African nations on a “case-by-case basis," breaking from President Trump's earlier promises to maintain an Obama-era ban on the practice.

In a formal memorandum issued on Thursday, FWS said it will withdraw its 2017 Endangered Species Act (ESA) findings for trophies of African elephants from Zimbabwe and Zambia, “effective immediately.”

[...]

The service also announced it is withdrawing a number of previous ESA findings, which date back to 1995, related to trophies of African elephants, bontebok and lions from multiple African countries.

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FWS said it will still consider the information included in the ESA findings, as well as science-based risk assessments of the species’ vulnerability, when evaluating each permit request.

  The Hill

And who the person is requesting the permit and how much money they've put into whose pockets.

At the time, a FWS spokesperson said the reversal “will enhance the survival of the species in the wild.”

By killing some.

Following the fall announcement to overturn the ban, the Trump administration faced immense backlash, which played a role in leading the president to denounce elephant hunting and promise to re-establish the ban.

And then let everybody forget about it before his administration actually did anything.

FWS and the Interior Department remained tight-lipped as to the status of the ban. Numerous requests for information to FWS from The Hill over several months were referred to Interior and left unanswered.

[...]

Nine days before FWS added the reversal to the Federal Register, the Interior Department announced that it was establishing an International Wildlife Conservation Council to "advise the Secretary of the Interior on the benefits that international recreational hunting has on foreign wildlife and habitat conservation."

Killing is good for elephants. They're practically swarming the African plains, carrying their terrible elephant diseases, going crazy and killing everything in sight. I'm sure that's what's happening.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

P.S.