All animal abuse is unacceptable. But mostly it is illegal. Trophy hunting is legalised animal abuse on an industrial scale. Trophy hunters are exempted from laws which ban the trafficking of endangered species. You can’t shoot an elephant and trade its tusks. If you’re a trophy hunter you can kill the same elephant, take its tusks and get away scot-free.

We now have just 40 ‘Big Tusker’ African elephants left on Earth.

40…

Colonial-era trophy hunters massacred them. Modern-day hunters are allowed to continue the slaughter. One hunter, Ron Thomson, has proudly boasted of having killed more than 5000 elephants.

Humans and primates share over 90% of the same DNA. British trophy hunters joyfully boast of killing monkeys and baboons. Alongside elephants, they are among the most popular animals for UK trophy hunters. An investigation by the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting reveals that hunters have traded trophies of whales, dolphins and chimpanzees. Sloth bears, parrots, turtles and flamingos are deemed fair game too.

People capable of animal cruelty are equally capable of hurting people. Many of the world’s worst criminals – including Moors Murderer Ian Brady – started out abusing animals. The FBI says animal cruelty is a ‘Grade A felony’ – the most serious category of crime. Serials killers keep souvenirs of their victims. Trophy hunters kill one animal after another and then take their sick mementoes home.

You can go to prison for shooting a cat for fun. You can win a prize for shooting a wild cat for fun, even though it is threatened with extinction. Scientists say lions are losing their genetic diversity thanks to hunters shooting the biggest animals, and that this could condemn them to extinction. The last time a big cat disappeared from earth was the sabre-tooth tiger. It died out in prehistoric times.

Can you imagine a world without lions? How do we explain that to future generations?

We cannot call ourselves civilised while we allow trophy hunting. We must abolish it.

Please act today.

Everyone was outraged when Cecil was shot 6 years ago, yet thousands more lions have been killed by trophy hunters since then, some of them by British hunters. There used to be 20 million lions. Now there are 20,000. The law says it’s still OK to kill lions for thrills. It’s not OK. It’s institutional insanity.

Trophy hunters are committing crimes against nature. They’re murdering living things for a laugh. If someone did that to a human they’d be sectioned or sent down. If you kill and grin about it, you’re a sadist. Full stop. Killing animals for ‘fun’ is the depths of depravity.

Trophy hunters call their atrocities ‘sport’. Taking pleasure from seeing animals writhing in pain isn’t sport. Boasting how many defenceless animals you’ve killed isn’t sport. Taking selfies of yourself standing over your victims isn’t sport. It’s just being nasty.

If you want to fully understand the definition of absurdity, look at the situation with trophy hunting. We have laws that ban or restrict the trade in animal body parts. Then they say it’s OK for trophy hunters to kill the same endangered animals – because trophies are a hunter’s ‘personal or household effects’. It’s absurd!

Right now in Britain if you shoot a cat for a laugh you could go to prison. But if you’re a trophy hunter and shoot a big cat you could get a prize. Are we going to have to wait until lions go extinct and then say – ‘Oh yeah, maybe we shouldn’t have let this carry on’? Scientists say lions could soon be gone from the wild. Are we seriously ready to just let that happen?

But we can’t just ban trophy hunting of endangered animals. All trophy hunting needs to stop. No animal is more or less worthy of dignity. A trophy hunter who shoots an eland is just as much of a psycho as one who shoots an elephant. It’s just as wrong to kill a reindeer for kicks as it is to kill a rhino. We need to get it into our heads that we are not supreme beings, we don’t have the right to murder living creatures for entertainment, and that there’s no excuse for animal abuse.

Like many people in our country, I am a big animal lover and detest all forms of animal cruelty. For me, trophy hunting is possibly the worst and most senseless kind of animal cruelty. I cannot understand what pleasure someone can get from killing an animal for kicks.

How can you kill an animal that’s been bred in a cage just to be shot for a ‘trophy’? How can you shoot a defenceless animal from 200 yards and call that ‘sport’?

Trophy hunters are given awards for killing most animals with ‘novelty’ weapons. They shoot elephants and hippos with bows and arrows and handguns and get prizes for it. British hunters are permitted to kill giraffes and zebras and bring home their heads and skins to decorate their homes with.

They are allowed to kill tame lions and leopards in enclosures the animals cannot escape from – just so they can smile and pose for a photo next to their victim. No wonder people in Britain are angry and want trophy hunting banned.

I cannot understand why this is still legal. We constantly hear we are in the middle of an extinction crisis. Yet laws to protect vulnerable species don’t apply to trophy hunters.

An investigation by the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting shows there are less than 7,000 cheetahs left on earth. There are fewer than 5,000 black rhinos. If trophy hunting is your hobby, though, you can get a permit to kill them and bring their body parts home to show off.

It seems we are condemning wildlife to not just a cruel death but also to a needless extinction. We must halt the slide while there is still time. How can any living species hunt another for a trophy?

I was born in the Maasai Mara in southwestern Kenya. I lived in a typical village and would look after the livestock. I grew up with wildlife all around me. When I was a boy, I became very close to a small bat-eared fox. We used to have some in the fields where I would look after the sheep and goats. I used to play with him. He would run around me and then run into a hole in the ground. I would run around with him.

It makes me feel sick that trophy hunters, including from Britain, go to Africa to shoot bat-eared foxes for fun. It’s my favourite animal. Knowing that some people shoot them for fun is a terrible thing. I feel sick even thinking about it.

When you are a boy in the Maasai tribe, you aspire to become a warrior. Before, you would have to participate in a lion hunt to prove your warriorhood. When the Maasai realised we can benefit from conserving wildlife, we decided to stop any cultural activities that involved the killing of an animal. You can now be recognised as a Maasai warrior without going lion hunting.

To shoot and stick a lion’s head on a wall is absolutely wrong.

The Maasai have increased the size of our conservation areas. More animals mean more nature tourism which means more income for the community. The conservancies employ young Maasai as rangers. You get proper training so it creates jobs.

I went to high school thanks to money generated by photographic tourism. The share of the money given to the local community was used to provide an education for children like myself. Every single child that was in high school was sponsored with this money.

Thanks to this I was able to become a naturalist and safari guide. It was perfect for me, because I grew up among the wildlife in the Maasai Mara so it was very easy for me. Some children have been sponsored to come to the UK or go to the US to study to become doctors and engineers.

I hope Britain brings in a total ban on the import of trophies and the rest of the world follows. Conservation and hunting don’t go together. Nobody should be allowed to bring in anything from a trophy hunting trip anywhere in the world. There should be a complete ban. Go and hunt with a camera, not a rifle.

If you can afford to pay to hunt a lion or an elephant, give that money to conservation. Go and take photographs. Leave the animals alone.

It is 6 years since Cecil the lion was shot by an American trophy hunter. It is 5 years since the government first promised to stop hunters from bringing back these gruesome souvenirs.

Trophy hunting is purely horrific and unjustified cruelty, however. Cecil the lion was in agony for 11 hours before he was eventually killed. US studies say half the animals shot by trophy hunters are wounded rather than instantly killed. A new book, ‘Undercover Trophy Hunter’, reveals that British hunters are equally responsible for inflicting appalling injuries on the same animals. This kind of suffering purely for fun is simply inexcusable.

A Survation opinion poll shows just 3% of voters favour a trophy ban on endangered species alone. A full 85% of the public – and 89% of Conservatives – want a total ban. A new All-Party Parliamentary Group which aims to see all trophy hunting banned has been launched. It is being chaired by a Conservative backbencher, Sir Roger Gale MP. Fellow Conservative Sir David Amess MP has tabled an early day motion calling for a total ban.

Trophy hunters and serial killers have a lot in common. It’s time the law dealt with them in the same way. Banning trophy hunting imports should be right at the top of this government’s agenda. There is overwhelming public support for it. A ban should be properly enforced with tough punishments for anyone who tries to get around it. Jail terms should be on the table. Fines should be heavy enough to be a real deterrent and punishment for trophy hunters who are generally very wealthy, and could be used to support conservation.”

Trophy hunting is an archaic, cruel and unjustified relic of yesterday. We need a comprehensive ban that is properly enforced and which is backed up by tough punitive measures. If we are to make a serious statement about repudiating this barbaric pastime, the government must set jail tariffs which reflect the seriousness of this crime against nature.

In this day and age, it is remarkable that we still continue to witness amongst some people a mindset that dates back to a bygone era. There are some in the human race who are trapped in a past that was driven by a dog-eat-dog mentality that has absolutely no care for nature and the planet we live on.

Such an example of reckless abandonment of responsibility is demonstrated by those who advocate for the hunting of wildlife purely for sport and recreation. This is evident in the governments that encourage it and by those who partake in it.

Those who pose alongside the animals they have killed, with glee on their faces and rifles in their hands, propping up the head of the slaughtered animal, is a picture of ridiculousness many have seen. It demonstrates a flaw in human nature which exposes a sadistic side to them that would make some terrorist organisations proud to have them in their ranks.

And it is a form of terrorism when you want only to kill for enjoyment and pose with the dead, as ISIS often did with the severed head of their innocent victims. With the decline of wildlife worldwide, and many species approaching extinction, all caused by man, how can there be justification for hunting? How can any government say they are fighting poaching whilst allowing hunting at the same time? What a contradiction – what hypocrisy.

But let us not forget that sometimes these decisions, which are detrimental to our environment and not in the long term best interests of nature, are driven by greed and corruption. The downtrodden in this world, be they people or animals, shall forever be so for as long as those in power who are fed by power brokers are allowed to exist on our dying planet.

There will be nothing left for future generations to inherit and marvel at if indeed there are many generations left to come, as we see the particles in the hourglass seeping to the bottom. There they shall remain as no one will stop the tsunami of destruction and reverse the tide by turning the glass upside down and replenishing our world.

I call upon those countries from where these promoters of extinction come from to step up and ban the import of trophies and sanction this bad practice.

Pope Francis, in his Encyclical Letter “Laudato Si – On Care for Our Common Home”, refers frequently to the dignity and value of every creature. He says: “This is the basis of our conviction that, as part of the universe, called into being by one Father, all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.”

This interconnectedness also includes the animal kingdom and our need to preserve all species. It would be clear from this document alone that Catholic teaching would be in defence of animals hunted for trophies.

We seem, perhaps all too slowly, to be recognising that we have a common responsibility with all peoples – our brothers and sisters throughout the world – to care for our planet, “our common home”.This means accepting the challenge to be responsible and knowledgeable stewards of the world in which we live.

That stewarding needs to embrace the physical world, with its climate, minerals and resources, and the creatures that inhabit this world. Nature is a complexity which exists with fine and exacting balances and where we intrude on Nature’s cycle we endanger species. We are learning about the diversity of creatures just at the time that we are beginning to understand how destructive we are being and that in this generation we are now seeing the extinction of 200 species every single day, in what is being called the “Sixth Global Mass Extinction”.

We need to urgently reverse this destruction. But there remains one notable exception to concerns expressed about the protection of the diversity of our wildlife – our persistent cruelty towards some animals in the pursuit of trophies. We continue to slaughter animals, often in the cruellest fashion, for sport and fun. How can we claim any dignity in that? What pride can there be in arming ourselves with guns to kill defenceless creatures which are no threat to us?

We seem to have become very confused about the gift of life, be it human or animal. There are arguments that can be understood, whether a person might agree with them or not, about the killing of an animal for its meat – but for a trophy to hang on the wall? There can be no justification for that, particularly when a whole species is facing extinction.

A radical change in thinking is needed, now.