Delta, American Airlines move to stop carrying big game trophies

It capitulated Monday, issuing a statement saying it would “officially ban shipment of all lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo trophies worldwide as freight”.

“Americans who engage in trophy hunting do so because they are confident that they will be able to transport their trophies back to the United Staes easily, including by airline”, Sens. They also pointed to the logistics behind getting the head, horns and hide of a dead animal to a destination. Cecil was a major tourist attraction of the national park.

Two of the three hunters accused of killing Cecil have been detained in Zimbabwe.

Delta is the biggest U.S. carrier to Africa, while United, a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc., serves only one destination on the continent – Lagos, Nigeria. Other global airline companies have bans already in place including British Airways, Emirates, Qatar, Singapore and Brussels.

A spokesperson for the company told the Associated Press that the decision was mostly a symbolic gesture since American Airlines do not offer flights to Africa.

The announcements come in the wake of outrage over the killing of an African lion named Cecil.

However, there is disagreement even among conservationists about whether well-regulated big-game hunting can actually be a net benefit for wildlife, as some percentage of the revenue collected from hunters is often invested in wildlife resource agencies. The group have blacklisted a number of countries however, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Tanzania and South Africa are listed as “positive” meaning that the have a large enough population of lions to accommodate hunting.

Zimbabwe has requested the extradition of Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who shot Cecil. Officials in that country said the animal was lured out and hunted down by an American dentist. However, he has closed his practice and remained in hiding.

“I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt”, he said last week in a statement obtained by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.