The US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to allow for the importing of trophies from elephants killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the US.

The Obama administration banned the practice in 2014 after elephant numbers dropped.

Hunting advocacy groups cheered the move, while animal-rights activists decried it.

The Trump administration plans to allow trophies from elephants hunted legally in Zimbabwe and Zambia to be brought into the US, a reversal of Obama-era policy.

That means US hunters will be able to bring the ivory of elephants they have killed into the US, potentially disrupting a push to end the global ivory trade.

While hunting elephants is legal in numerous African countries – under a strict permitting system in which hunters pay high fees for the privilege – the Obama administration enacted restrictions on the import of trophies in 2014 after the number of elephants in the wild fell dramatically.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has not announced the change in policy on its website, but the nonprofit hunting advocacy group Safari Club International on Tuesday said the agency announced the move at an event in Africa, and numerous news outlets have since cited agency representatives as confirming it.

African elephants are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Under the act, hunting trophies, like elephant tusks, can be imported only if the federal government finds that the hunting will aid the long-term survival of the species, such as by funding conservation efforts.

A US Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman told CNN on Thursday that allowing US hunters to shoot elephants in Zimbabwe and Zambia would bring the countries “much-needed revenue.”

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Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society, an animal-rights organization, slammed the reversal on Wednesday.

“For decades, Zimbabwe has been run by a dictator who has targeted and killed his political opponents, and operated the country’s wildlife management program as something of a live auction,” Pacelle wrote on his blog, later adding: “Let’s be clear: elephants are on the list of threatened species; the global community has rallied to stem the ivory trade; and now, the U.S. government is giving American trophy hunters the green light to kill them.”

Safari Club International praised the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to reverse the ban.

“These positive findings for Zimbabwe and Zambia demonstrate that the Fish and Wildlife Service recognizes that hunting is beneficial to wildlife and that these range countries know how to manage their elephant populations,” Paul Babaz, the president of Safari Club International, said in a press release.

Zimbabwe’s longtime leader, Robert Mugabe, lost his grip on power in the country in an apparent military coup earlier this week. Mugabe is under house arrest, and Zimbabwe’s military is effectively in control of the country’s capital, Harare.

“We appreciate the efforts of the Service and the US Department of the Interior to remove barriers to sustainable use conservation for African wildlife,” Babaz added.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke – an avid hunter – announced earlier this month the creation of the International Wildlife Conservation Council, a body designed to “develop a plan for public engagement and education on the benefits of international hunting,” according to Zinke’s announcement.

Trophy hunting, ostensibly for conservation purposes, caused an uproar after a popular, protected lion named Cecil was shot and killed by an American dentist in 2015.