Game changer

Back in November, amid an outcry over his administration’s decisions to allow more imports of elephant and lion parts, President Trump declared trophy hunting a “horror show.” What he omitted, apparently, is that he doesn’t mind a good horror show.

Contrary to every indication of the president’s rhetoric a few months ago, the administration last week quietly eased imports of trophies taken from African elephants and, for good measure, lions and antelope. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in an unpublicized memorandum that it is lifting restrictions on big-game trophies from several African countries. While the memo cited a successful legal challenge by Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association to rules imposed during President Barack Obama’s administration, the agency also lifted a number of other restrictions on trophy imports, some dating as far back as 1995.

While supporters of biggame hunting argue that the substantial fees paid by hunters help fund conservation of vulnerable species such as African elephants, the overturned prohibitions targeted countries where the fees hadn’t been shown to consistently further protection of animals.

The president’s sons have been photographed posing with a menagerie of felled African fauna, and his interior secretary, Ryan Zinke — whose department includes Fish and Wildlife — took pains to redecorate his office with a stuffed grizzly bear and other large, dead mammals. So when the president said on Twitter that he would be “very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal,” it came as something of a surprise.

It shouldn’t have. On guns, immigration and other issues, it’s been Trump’s pattern to loudly proclaim his sympathy with the country’s moderate majority and then pursue policies that cater to the reactionary fringes.