The United States is the engine driving the global trophy hunting industry, and wealthy Americans are its primary consumers. According to an IFAW analysis of CITES trade data, the US accounts for 71 percent of global trophy import demand - about 15 times that of the next-highest importing nation. As we've documented at World Animal Protection, in 2015, more than 50 percent of all canned-hunted lions in South Africa were killed by Americans. Between 2005 and 2014, over 1.26 million wildlife trophies were imported to the US - roughly 126,000 animals per year. Cecil the Lion? Killed by an American. The demand for elephant tusks, lion skulls, and leopard skins as macabre status symbols? Overwhelmingly American. And the numbers keep climbing. The permitting data obtained via FOIA shows that permits were being issued to American hunters across six African nations - Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This isn't a distant, abstract policy debate. This is a slaughter subsidized by American wealth and enabled by American bureaucracy. A 2022 survey found that 76 percent of Americans oppose trophy hunting, yet the administration is charging ahead anyway.