At first glance, it looks typical of the Trump administration to flip-flop on lifting the Obama-era ban on big game and trophy imports. When you look closer at why this is happening though, you see a network of influences that are unfriendly to human and animal life and the environment. One of the most prominent of these is the NRA.

The Trump Administration is receiving criticism for their opaqueness about the ban. The Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t publically release a memo about rolling back the ban on trophy and game imports and are being vague about the criteria that will be used to review individual cases. In their rationale for lifting the ban the agency directly cited a DC Circuit Court ruling in a case brought by the NRA and the Safari Club International that attacked the Obama era ban on technicalities. In lifting the ban they’ve removed certain criteria for reviewing permits as far back as 1995, which will mean other animals — not just elephants, but lions and bonteboks from South Africa — will be vulnerable. A census of African Elephants says that their population had plummeted by roughly 30 percent from 2007 to 2014. Supporters of hunting say fees go to conservation, but activists are concerned that fees from big game hunting are siphoned into corruption. Even Trump himself has expressed skepticism about funds from hunting going back into conservation.

There aren’t many organizations who care less about life than the NRA. Their support of big game hunting shows how regard for human and animal life is intimately connected. When Trump’s own Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke supports lifting the ban, installs the “big buck hunter” videogame in his employee cafeteria and lifts a ban on lead bullets that poison animals, it’s clear that the administration is part of a more insidious problem. Violence is violence, and with every decision the Trump administration makes, it gives explicit and implicit support to organizations that are unfriendly to life on this planet.

Read more about this story here: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/06/591209422/trump-administration-quietly-decides-again-to-allow-elephant-trophy-imports