This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Trump administration’s decision to loosen restrictions around the import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia has turned attention back to the president’s family’s own connection to the controversial sport.

Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump are prolific big-game hunters and during the 2016 campaign, images re-emerged of the pair on a 2011 hunting trip posing with animals they had killed on safari, including an elephant, a buffalo and a leopard.

xoxo, Jane (@PoodleMama1966) The GOP. Here's Donald Trump Jr. holding the tail of an elephant (party symbol) that he killed. #TrumpSacrifices pic.twitter.com/FIGkcH2F0t

Mia Farrow (@MiaFarrow) What went so wrong with Trump sons that they could kill this beautiful creature pic.twitter.com/L1gquLQrRz

The images of Trump’s sons smiling with dead animals sparked a wave of criticism, with actress Mia Farrow writing on Twitter: “What went so wrong with Trump sons that they could kill this beautiful creature.”



But Trump Jr told Forbes in 2012 that outrage over the images of him and his brother was misplaced. Forbes columnist Frank Miniter said Trump Jr had told him: “Elephants are overpopulated in the area the Trumps hunted and so need to be hunted to prevent them from further destroying their habitat.”

Conservationists say elephants numbers are in sharp decline because of human encroachment and poaching, and that trophy hunts fuel the demand for wild animal products.

Trump himself has never expressed interest in big-game hunting. “My sons love hunting. They’re hunters and they’ve become good at it,” Trump told TMZ in 2012. “I am not a believer in hunting and I’m surprised they like it.”

In 2014, the Obama administration’s US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) banned the import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe on the basis that the country had failed to show it was taking elephant management seriously.



'There's no sport in that': trophy hunters and the masters of the universe Read more

After reversing that ban this week, an FWS spokesman told the Guardian: “Legal, well-regulated sport hunting as part of a sound management programme can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation.”

The decision was applauded by Safari Club International, a hunting rights group, and the National Rifle Association.