Donald Trump Tweets Cryptic Elephant Trophy Message

American President Donald Trump has tweeted that his decision on lifting the ban on importing elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe into the USA, will be announced next week.

However nobody can tell from his message whether he is still set on reversing the ban and nothing can change his mind OR, if he now believes that encouraging the hunting and killing of an animal – which faces extinction – would be a “horror show”.

This was Trump’s message late Sunday: “Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal.”

The ban was originally put in place by former President Obama to discourage American hunters from paying to shoot elephant in Africa – where between 100 and 200 elephant are reported to be killed per day by hunters, poachers and locals. Merely killing the animal is not normally sufficient for hunters who wish to take home the ‘trophy’.

When the announcement was made early last week that Trump was planning to lift the ban – apparently convinced that the revenue generated by hunting would better serve conservation efforts than keeping those individual elephant alive – much of the world reacted with outrage. Petitions were created on several sites around the world – see link below. It prompted Trump to tweet that the decision would be put on hold until he had reviewed all conservation facts.

MORE

President Donald Trump puts elephant trophy decision on hold – see full list of Petitions.

Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017