WASHINGTON — A coalition of environmental and animal-welfare groups sued on Tuesday to challenge the Trump administration’s moves toward allowing the importation of the heads, hides, and tusks of African elephants as hunting trophies.
Four groups filed an amended lawsuit in US District Court in Washington against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over this month’s announcement that the Fish and Wildlife Service will begin considering permit applications for importing body parts from sport-hunted elephants on a case-by-case basis.
The agency said its March 1 decision was in response to a legal ruling that found procedural flaws with how the Obama administration had imposed an earlier ban,.
The policy change came despite tweets from President Trump decrying big-game hunting as a ‘‘horror show.’’ The agency said last week it has not yet issued any permits to import elephants, though 37 permits for lion trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia have been issued since a similar prohibition on them was quietly lifted in October.
The lawsuit contends the Fish and Wildlife Service went far beyond the earlier legal ruling on the issue, wiping the slate clean of long-standing decisions pertaining to trophy imports. The groups say the Trump administration is failing to comprehensively consider the ecological impacts of trophy hunting and has been operating with a lack of transparency and public input.
ASSOCIATED PRESS