No one is more jeer worthy today than Donald Trump Jr., who reportedly shot and killed an endangered sheep during a hunting expedition to Mongolia last summer, the New York Daily News reports. Trump Jr., who disgustingly refers to the trip as “personal journey,” obviously thinks he’s above the law because according to ProPublica he didn’t receive a permit until after he murdered the majestic long-horned argali sheep, whose numbers have plummeted in recent years amid hunting and destruction of its habitat in the rocky central Asian steppes. FWS is now investigating the incident, according to a report in Roll Call.

Not surprisingly Trump, Jr. bought the trip at a National Rifle Association fundraising benefit.

Friends of Animals supports the Prohibiting Threatened and Endangered Creature Trophies Act of 2019 (the ProTECT Act) which will help prevent the hunting of any species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It would prohibit trophy hunting of these animals at canned hunting facilities in the U.S. and ban the import of trophies of ESA-listed species.

Trophy hunters are just poachers with permits.

With the high degree of corruption in African countries, for example, dedicated and well-managed conservation is not a priority. A failure of the strict monitoring of the age, and sex of animals and a lack of penalties is a serious threat to these species. Cecil, the lion killed by a U.S. dentist on a trophy hunt in 2015, is a perfect example. While the American dentist did file the proper paperwork to sport hunt a lion in Zimbabwe and import the trophy, Cecil was technically poached, or hunted illegally. A minimum age limit for hunting lions is set at six years old by the wildlife authorities in Zimbabwe. Of the 5 lions legally hunted in 2014, four were under six, so as a penalty was there were no lions on license for 2015, when Cecil was killed. And if you hunt in Zimbabwe with a bow you need a parks ranger with you. Palmer didn’t have one.

This is just one example of how it’s impossible for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor so-called conservation programs overseas.

(This post was updated on 12/18/19.)