Texas elephant and lion hunters ask Congress to relax rules

Big game hunters have launched a campaign to bring back trophy hunting, which has been nearly impossible since a Minnesota dentist killed Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe.

That infamous 2015 killing prompted the U.S. government to make sport hunting of lions and elephants so difficult that permits are essentially impossible to obtain, but hunt clubs have set up political action committees to pressure lawmakers to ease restrictions, reported the Houston Chronicle.

“It’s worse than it has ever been,” said John Jackson III, chairman of the Conservation Force group that advocates for big game hunting. “Now it’s almost impossible to get permits.”

Jackson said animal rights groups don't seem to care that big game hunters have given millions of dollars to African nations for conservation efforts, but now hunting groups are focusing their efforts on lobbying.

The Houston Safari Club launched a federal political action committee in May to raise money intended to influence political campaigns, and its website shows the group is ramping up its lobbying efforts.

Houston was one of the biggest importers of slain lions, with 1,053 of the large cats transported into the city between 2004 and 2016, the second-most in the country after New York City.

Federal records show the import of lions to Houston has plummeted from 139 in 2015 to just 19 last year.

The Houston Safari Club asked Congress not to pass a House bill prompted by Cecil's killing that would impose new restrictions on importing trophy animals, and prohibit elephant and lion imports from Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Hunting advocates complain the legislation is "emotionally uninformed" and "short-sighted," but The Humane Society of the United States argued that hunters overstate their impact on conservation efforts.

Jackson, the game hunting advocate, hoped that President Donald Trump -- whose sons have taken part in trophy hunting -- would rescind some of the Obama-era rules passed after Cecil's killing, but he said restrictions have almost been worse.

The big-game hunter complained that getting the necessary paperwork to hunt a lion in Africa can take up to a year now that subspecies of African lions have been listed as threatened or endangered.