Stat Of The Week: U.S.A. #1 (For Importing Lion Body Parts)

The United States is the global leader in this shameful practice.

While we all play “Where’s Walter?” and wait to see how Zimbabwe’s extradition request for the world’s most despised dentist actually unfolds, unprecedented attention is being paid to the previously obscure world of big game trophy hunting.

FiveThirtyEight has some possibly surprising data on the lion trophy export market:

From 1981 to 2012, three-quarters of all lion trophy exports were sent to only five countries — France, Germany, South Africa, Spain and the United States — according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international body that tracks the effect of trade on the survival of species. And, according to CITES, 52 percent of all lion trophy exports end up in the U.S., and its share of the trophy trade has been growing. (Trophies can include anything from lion claws to complete lion bodies that are suitable for taxidermy and mounting.)

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