Trump administration reverses ban on shipping elephant trophies to America from hunts in Zimbabwe. Gee, I wonder why?

Courtesy of WaPo:

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the remains of elephants legally hunted in Zimbabwe and Zambia can now be imported to the United States as trophies, reversing a ban under former president Barack Obama. 

African elephants are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that large sums paid for permits to hunt the animals could actually help them “by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation,” according to an agency statement. 

Under the Obama administration, elephant-hunting trophies were allowed in countries such as South Africa but not in Zimbabwe because Fish and Wildlife decided in 2015 that the nation had failed to prove that its management of elephants enhanced the population. Zimbabwe could not confirm its elephant population in a way that was acceptable to U.S. officials, and did not demonstrate an ability to implement laws to protect it. 

The Service’s new statement did not specify what had changed in that country — where the African elephant population has declined 6 percent in recent years, according to the Great Elephant Census project — to allow hunting trophies. A spokeswoman said an explanation will be published in the Federal Register on Friday.

Yeah I really don't get it.

I guess there is just no part of my body that is so small and shame inducing which would require that I murder these magnificent animals in order to make up for it. 

Great white hunter gets crushed by large grey elephant in Africa.

Courtesy of the Telegraph: 

A South African big game hunter died after being crushed by an elephant cow that had been shot on a game reserve in Zimbabwe at the weekend. 

Theunis Botha, 51, was leading a hunt with clients when the group accidentally walked into the middle of a breeding herd of elephants at the Good Luck Farm near Hwange National Park late on Friday afternoon, Zimparks spokesman Mr Simukai Nyasha said. 

Three of the elephant cows charged the hunters. Mr Botha fired a shot from his rifle but he was caught by surprise by a fourth cow that stormed them from the side, the Afrikaans news site Netwerk24 reported.

He shot these majestic animals in a place called "Good Luck Farm?"

 What, they didn't have any cows he could shoot instead?

This is one of those instances where you have to remind yourself that a man lost his life, and you should not feel any pleasure or sense of satisfaction.

But then you read that the man trained dogs to harass and chase the animals toward him so that he could shoot them more easily, and the struggle becomes just that much more difficult.

So let us mourn the passing of this man, but also remember that he died doing what he loved, slaughtering animals to make himself feel more manly.

Of course in the end he probably felt less like a man, and more like a mancake.