The list of embarrassing or distressing things coming out of the Trump administration seems to have no end. It stretches from the throbbing orange ego at the top down to the most obscure commission or panel or adviser. Take this one, which Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer reports on. It’s intended to promote the killing and dismemberment of large animals, including endangered ones:
The members of the International Wildlife Conservation Council, which is holding its first meeting Friday, include a reality-TV safari hunting guide, a former beauty queen, gun industry representatives, members and affiliates of a controversial trophy hunting group, and a veterinarian associated with an exotic animal breeding facility in Florida that sells endangered animals to roadside zoos.
“It’s really embarrassing,” says Masha Kalinina, the international trade policy specialist for the wildlife department at the Humane Society International. “I just question the qualifications of each and every one of these people. Notably missing from this trophy hunting council are legitimate representatives of the conservation community with proper scientific credentials and a record of successful conservation programs, along with wildlife law enforcement experts and biologists who have no financial stake in promoting trophy hunting.”
Uday and Qusay Trump like to shoot elephants, sever their tails, and pose for photos, so trophy hunting has been declared an economically beneficial activity that’s worth spending $250,000 a year to promote through the activities of a classically Trump-style group of people. Seriously, the oozing stench coming out of this administration just never ends.