Put big game trophy decision on hold until such time as I review all conservation facts. Under study for years. Will update soon with Secretary Zinke. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2017

Hours later, Zinke elaborated: “President Trump and I have talked and both believe that conservation and healthy herds are critical,” he said in a statement. “As a result, in a manner compliant with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations, the issuing of permits is put on hold as the decision is being reviewed.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had announced the policy shift just two days earlier, with officials signaling in a statement that they would expand efforts to promote trophy hunting as a form of conservation.

African elephants are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but the Interior Department agency said it had determined that large sums paid for permits to hunt the animals could actually help them “by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation.”

Under the Obama administration, elephant-hunting trophies were allowed in South Africa and Namibia but not in Zimbabwe because Fish and Wildlife decided in 2015 that the nation had failed to prove that its management of elephants enhanced the population. At the time, Zimbabwe could not confirm its elephant population in a way that was acceptable to U.S. officials and did not demonstrate an ability to implement laws to protect it.

According to individuals briefed on the rule change, agency career staff had decided to allow Zimbabwean imports after officials there provided sufficient documentation. The issue was a priority for Interior’s political appointees, added the individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, but the appointees did not dictate the outcome.

The change was to apply to elephants shot in Zimbabwe on or after Jan. 21, 2016, and to those legally permitted to be hunted before the end of next year.

The African elephant population in that country has fallen 6 percent in recent years, according to the Great Elephant Census project. It is relatively stable in Zambia, which has decided to renew hunting after having previously banned it because of several decades of sharp decline.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has also been reviewing whether to allow elephant trophy imports from Tanzania, where poaching is rampant and the species has suffered a sharp decline in recent decades.

The agency’s move came a week after Zinke established an “International Wildlife Conservation Council” to advise him on how to increase Americans’ public awareness of conservation, wildlife enforcement and the “economic benefits that result from U.S. citizens traveling abroad to hunt.”

“The conservation and long-term health of big game crosses international boundaries,” Zinke said in a statement announcing the group’s creation. “This council will provide important insight into the ways that American sportsmen and women benefit international conservation from boosting economies and creating hundreds of jobs to enhancing wildlife conservation.”

Two of the department’s existing wildlife advisory bodies — the Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking and the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council — remain suspended as a result of a temporary freeze Zinke imposed earlier this year on all such panels. And the U.S. Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking, which was codified into law last year and is led by Interior as well as the Justice and State departments, has not been active since Trump took office.

“If you care about wildlife, how can you ignore wildlife trafficking?” said Bob Dreher, vice president for conservation at the Defenders of Wildlife, who served as Fish and Wildlife associate director from 2014 to 2016.

How Trump is rolling back Obama’s legacy View Graphic

How Trump is rolling back Obama’s legacy

Safari Club International, a hunting advocacy group that has consistently opposed any restrictions on importing trophies from abroad, broke the news of the rule change a day ahead of the government. Its statement included a detail that the agency omitted: A Fish and Wildlife official made the announcement at a forum the Safari Club’s foundation arm co-hosted in Tanzania, from which elephant trophy imports remain banned. An agency spokeswoman declined to confirm that account.

A representative of the group, along with several other hunting activists, joined Zinke in his office on his first day as he signed one secretarial order aimed at expanding hunting and fishing on federal lands and another reversing an Obama-era policy that would have phased out the use of lead ammunition and tackle in national wildlife refuges by 2022.

Zimbabwe is currently in turmoil, with President Robert Mugabe under house arrest as a military coup unfolds. In criticizing the ban reversal, the Humane Society of the United States called the ban on Zimbabwean elephant imports reasonable because Zimbabwe is “one of the most corrupt countries on Earth.” The organization noted that Mugabe celebrated his birthday in 2015 by dining on an elephant.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) had referenced the country’s political crisis in criticizing Fish and Wildlife’s move.

“In this moment of turmoil, I have zero confidence that the regime — which for years has promoted corruption at the highest levels — is properly managing and regulating conservation programs,” Royce said in a statement Friday afternoon. “Elephants and other big game in Africa are blood currency for terrorist organizations, and they are being killed at an alarming rate. Stopping poaching isn’t just about saving the world’s most majestic animals for the future — it’s about our national security.”

Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society, had described the situation in harsher terms in a blog post, writing of “a venal and nefarious pay-to-slay arrangement that Zimbabwe has set up with the trophy hunting industry.” In response to the latest announcement, Pacelle said via email that he was “grateful to President Trump for reassessing elephant and lion trophy hunting imports. This is the kind of trade we don’t need.”

While hunting has fostered conservation in the past, allowing it now could undermine efforts to curb the widespread poaching that underpins the global ivory trade, according to Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder and senior scientist at the Nairobi-based Save the Elephants.

Africans, he said in an interview Thursday, are “being told don’t kill elephants, and rich Americans are being allowed to come and do it. When you go back in history, it did do good, but now is absolutely not the time to be opening up hunting.”

In another potential policy reversal, Fish and Wildlife posted an online guide for hunters on how to import lion trophies. In 2016, after listing African lion populations as threatened or endangered depending on their location on the continent, the agency established specific requirements for allowing imports of their trophies. The Service also banned imports of trophies from lion populations kept in fenced enclosures to be hunted.

How to treat animal trophies Americans shoot overseas has been a contentious issue for years. The pelts of nearly four dozen polar bears that U.S. citizens shot in Canada in spring 2008 have remained stuck there after Fish and Wildlife declared the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Read more:

Overwhelmed U.S. port inspectors unable to keep up with the illegal wildlife trade

This hunter wanted a rare trophy — a rhino’s head

Zimbabwe was home to famous lion — that was hunted and killed

Two lions survived a circus, only to be killed and mutilated in a sanctuary

“In the last fifty years I was sexually intimate with approximately 50 very attractive females,” O’Neill, a Democrat, wrote. “It ranged from a gorgeous blonde who was my first true love and we made passionate love in the hayloft of her parents barn and ended with a drop dead gorgeous red head from Cleveland.

“Now can we get back to discussing legalizing marijuana and opening the state hospital network to combat the opioid crisis.”

(Facebook)

By Friday afternoon, after a storm of bipartisan condemnation from Ohio politicians, the post was deleted. Shortly before 6 p.m., O’Neill posted new comments.

“As an aside for all you sanctimonious judges who are demanding my resignation, hear this. I was a civil right lawyer actively prosecuting sexual harassment cases on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office before Anita Hill and before you were born,” O’Neill wrote.

“Lighten up folks. This is how Democrats remain in the minority,” he wrote.

(Facebook)

In his latest Facebook post, O’Neill said he had made his initial comments in response to the allegations of sexual assault surrounding Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). He wrote it was “morally wrong” for “the dogs of war to leap onto his back and demand his resignation.”

[‘Where do his hands go?’: Trump takes aim at ‘Al Frankenstien’ over groping claims]

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said O’Neill’s Facebook post was “terrible,” especially given its timing.

“We’re having a serious national conversation about rape culture and sexual harassment, and it’s crucial for men to take time to listen to women and consider their experiences and insights,” Pepper wrote on Twitter, adding, “Justice O’Neill’s Facebook comments both dehumanize women and do nothing but trivialize this important conversation, which is actually about harassment and abuse, not encounters between consenting adults.”

O’Neill could not immediately be reached for comment Friday by The Post. His campaign spokesman, Chris Clevenger, condemned O’Neill’s comments, calling them “both disturbing and misguided.” Clevinger said he was quitting the campaign.

The justice’s remarks came one day after broadcaster Leeann Tweeden publicly accused Franken of forcibly kissing her during a USO tour in 2006 and groping her breasts while she was sleeping on a plane during the trip home. Tweeden’s revelation was made shortly after an explosive congressional hearing on sexual harassment, which female lawmakers said is a pervasive problem on Capitol Hill.

[Rape in the storage room. Groping at the bar. Why is the restaurant industry so terrible for women?]

O’Neill told the Dispatch that Tweeden should not have publicly accused Franken, as the senator “has accepted responsibility” — and called fellow Democrats’ calls for Franken to resign “outrageous.” He similarly questioned the timing of The Post’s extensive report last week detailing Moore’s alleged pursuit of teenage girls in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“He’s in the middle of a Senate campaign,” O’Neill told the Dispatch.

O’Neill, who would not comment whether The Post should have written the story or whether he supports Moore in light of the accusations, said the accusations are a distraction that “trivializes the process” and diverts the race’s focus away from the issues.

Shortly after posting his statements to Facebook, O’Neill edited his comments to remove personal information about two of the women, according to the Dispatch.

The Facebook post isn’t the first time O’Neill stirred controversy in recent weeks. In late October, he announced his intention to run for governor in 2018 — but said he would hold his seat on the state Supreme Court until he submits his petitions for candidacy in February.

He wrote in the Star Beacon earlier this week that once his paperwork is filed, “I will resign from the Supreme Court. And not a day before. Here’s why”:

In 2012, I was elected by over 2 million Ohioans to serve on the Supreme Court of Ohio. It has been a privilege, and nowhere will you find even a shred of suggestion that I have done anything other than a competent, impartial and professional job.

There are about 99 cases pending before the Court. I have participated in them, conducted the research and consulted with my colleagues. They are nearly ready to be released. To simply walk away from those matters would be grossly unfair to the litigants, and a violation of my oath of office … which I cherish. As I indicated this week, I have already voluntarily informed the Court I will not be sitting on any new cases from this point forward. That is the right thing to do.

When I file petitions to run for governor I will be a candidate for governor. Anything short of that act is constitutionally protected free speech, which has been ratified by none other than the late great Justice Antonin Scalia.

Following O’Neill’s Facebook post, lawmakers and political leaders slammed him for his “crass” comments; some also called for the judge to step down.

“There’s a very serious conversation going on right now in this country about sexual harassment and @BillForOhio’s crass post is ill-timed and dismissive at best. We have to be better than this,” Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor (R) said Friday on Twitter.

O’Neill’s four rivals for the Democratic nomination also called for him to drop out of the race. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley (D) tweeted that “sexual harassment, degrading and devaluing women is not a joke. Justice O’Neill should resign.”

Democrat Connie Pillich, who is also running for governor, agreed the justice should resign, tweeting that “there’s nothing funny about sexual assault.” Pillich said O’Neill “has been a friend” and donated money to her campaign — money she now says she will be redistributing to women’s organizations.

Betty Sutton, another Democrat in the race for governor, said she was “appalled” by O’Neill’s comments.

“As a democrat I’m horrified he would belittle victims of sexual harassment/assault this way and as a woman I’m outraged he would equate sexual assault with indiscretion,” she wrote, adding, “He should resign immediately.”

O’Neill’s fourth rival, Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D), tweeted “a spontaneous run for governor and now this ridiculous Facebook post” lead him to believe it’s time for O’Neill to “hang it up.”

O’Neill confirmed to the Dispatch that he would drop out of the governor’s race if Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray chooses to run — now a possibility, the Dispatch reported, because of Cordray’s announcement that he will resign from his federal office by the end of the month.

Read more:

Female legislators recount harassment stories at hearing

Leading Senate Democrats call for ethics investigation into Al Franken

Al Franken’s past comments on sexual assault complicate his effort to dispute Leeann Tweeden’s allegation