"Trump once called the practice a 'horror show.' But his Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, keeps doing favors for big-game killers."

"President Donald Trump’s proposal last month to weaken the Endangered Species Act has sparked a familiar debate. Environmentalists say he’s shilling for the fossil fuel and logging industries, which seek to exploit federally protected land. Those industries say environmentalists are overreacting—that loosening the law’s requirements will allow economic development alongside species protection.

But one group with a big stake in the Endangered Species Act’s future hasn’t caught much attention. Trophy hunters—those who hunt large, often endangered or threatened wild animals in order to keep and display their carcasses—are applauding the idea of a weakened Endangered Species Act, which may make it easier to import dead leopards, giraffes, and other exotic animals to the United States.

The law, which was passed in 1973, bans the import of trophies for endangered or threatened species. The Trump administration, however, is proposing to repeal automatic protection for the latter category. (Threatened species are at less risk of extinction than endangered species.) If that happened, any newly designated threatened species would not receive protection from trophy hunting unless the Trump administration created a special regulation."

Emily Atkin reports for the New Republic August 14, 2018. [2]