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Article snippet: The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced last week that it will now consider all permits for importing elephant trophies from African nations on a “case-by-case basis," breaking from MORE's earlier promises to maintain an Obama-era ban on the practice. memorandum issued on Thursday, FWS said it will withdraw its 2017 Endangered Species Act (ESA) findings for trophies of African elephants from Zimbabwe and Zambia, “effective immediately.” ADVERTISEMENT The memo said “the findings are no longer effective for making individual permit determinations for imports of sport-hunted African elephant trophies.” In its place, FWS will instead “grant or deny permits to import a sport-hunted trophy on a case-by-case basis.” FWS said it will still consider the information included in the ESA findings, as well as science-based risk assessments of the species’ vulnerability, when evaluating each permit request. The service also announced it is withdrawing a number of previous ESA findings, which date back to 1995, related to trophies of African elephants, bontebok and lions from multiple African countries. The decision to withdraw the FWS findings followed a D.C. Circuit Court decision in December that found fault with the initial Obama-era rule, which banned importing elephant hunting trophies from Zimbabwe. The court also said the FWS should have gone through the extensive process of proposing a regulation, inviting public comment and making the regulation final when it... Link to the full article to read more