Keep the ban on elephant trophies

This editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune:

Big-game hunting was once a glamorous pursuit that inspired admiration of its practitioners. Ernest Hemingway went to Africa to shoot lions, rhinoceroses, leopards and other animals. On their safaris, Theodore Roosevelt and his son killed 500 animals, including hippos and zebras.

But those days are gone. The argument for allowing elephant trophy imports is that countries can raise funds for conservation by allowing wealthy hunters to harvest elephants and other big game. If the beasts are a lucrative source of revenue, the theory goes, governments and their people will have big incentives to ensure the health and survival of the species.

The Obama administration allowed elephant trophies from South Africa and Namibia, though it banned trade in ivory from African elephants.

It’s not clear how much good can be achieved through the paradoxical policy of allowing elephants to be destroyed in order to preserve elephants.

In any case, the moral implications make it hard to defend any hunting of African elephants, intelligent animals that are listed as “threatened” under U.S. law. Americans, like people of many nationalities worldwide, have come to grasp the intrinsic value of such creatures.

The day when humans can no longer justify shooting such creatures for mere pleasure is coming. By keeping the ban on these trophy imports, the president could hasten that day.