Ban on ‘Trophy’ Elephant Imports reversed by Trump Administration

The United States banned imports from Zimbabwe in 2014 because of a lack of data on conservation efforts there. Now the United States agency says it is satisfied with Zimbabwe’s actions and believes such hunts can be beneficial for the species by bringing money to local communities and providing incentives to conserve elephants.

The Trump administration will begin allowing hunters to bring into the United States “trophy” elephants killed in Zimbabwe, reversing a 2014 ban on a practice that has received intense scrutiny in recent years.

Though African elephants are protected under the Endangered Species Act, the law allows the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to authorize imports of trophies if the agency finds that the hunts in which the animals were killed contribute to the survival of the species.

The Zimbabwean government, it added, was contributing to efforts to combat poaching and working with partners to improve elephant management.

The reversal of the ban comes less than two weeks after the agency moved to allow imports from Zambia. Both decisions generally apply to elephants hunted in either country between 2016 and 2018. Hunters are allowed two imports per year.

Hunting trophies can include any number of body parts, including tusks. In 2016, the federal government, under President Barack Obama, imposed a near-total ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory, though trophies were exempted from that ban.

The African elephant population has drastically declined in the past decade, shrinking by about 30 percent between 2007 and 2014, according to the Great Elephant Census, an effort financed by the philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

That project found that Zambia and Zimbabwe have had mixed success in maintaining or growing their elephant populations. Parks near countries with poor elephant preservation efforts were not doing well, for example. But elephant populations elsewhere were stable or increasing.