Exclusive: Hard Numbers Reveal Scale of America’s Trophy-Hunting Habit
A new analysis from the Humane Society finds American hunters import more than 126,000 animal trophies a year.
This week sport hunters placed bids on at least 600 permits at Safari Club International’s annual convention, or, as it’s also called, “the ultimate hunter’s market.” The auction drew sharp criticism, but those 600 permits are only a sliver of American hunters’ involvement in the sport hunting industry.
Sport hunters, those who kill animals for recreation rather than out of necessity, imported more than 1.26 million trophies to the U.S. in the decade from 2005 through 2014, according to a new analysis of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s import data by Humane Society International and the Humane Society of United States. That’s an average of 126,000 trophy imports a year, or 345 a day.
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