A sport hunting organization has been lobbying the Trump administration to remove restrictions on imports of protected big game trophies, according to public records obtained by an animal rights group.
Safari Club International, a hunting advocacy group, petitioned Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last May asking for the department to remove strict limitations that hunters deal with when they are seeking to import the carcasses of lions, argali sheep and African elephants.
In the petition dated May 7, 2025, the group’s CEO, Laird Hamberlin, said that the Fish and Wildlife Service rules discourage foreign conservation programs, which are dependent on the revenue generated by hunting.
“These regulations are opposed by the range states who conserve the world’s largest populations of elephant, lion, argali, and many other species,” Hamberlin wrote. “It is best for these species, as well as the United States, to remove these rules and advance Congress’s directive to facilitate the import of animals from well-managed conservation hunting programs.”
