What can't you bring back to the US? Elephant tusks? Can you bring back skin? I see the skin in leather products all the time. If the only thing is skin, just get a measurement going and have fake ivory tusks made up. Look at fish trophies, they are all fiberglass that is painted. Then the country can sell off the tusks to the chinese, who also have their interest in elephant parts. Plus someone gets money for the plastic tusks/reproductions. More money all around.
I think the biggest problem is people think trophies are only shot for the photo or the mount. They don't understand that trophy hunting (at least in NA) normally means a reduction in the take, more outdoor experience, less killing. The African version these days seems more like put and take and in the most extreme cases leads to a direct farming analogy. That isn't hunting to me, but the farming case seems pretty defensible. It is certainly more humane to acquire say one domesticated cow and put it in your pasture, then have it expertly shot, rather than dragging the thing hundreds of miles to a kill floor. For meat, it is the ultimate case of local food.
The weakness in the farming model is that it makes sense for the animals, and it makes sense for the farm and the environment. It makes the person who paid 275K, say, to get his name in a book, for a canned hunt, look like a bit of a stooge to the average person. That is too bad given what is at stake for the environment.
The trophy fees in Africa are a plus and a minus. Putting a high value on animals is good, and the fact you have to pay for wounding is better than the system in NA. But it leads to the perception that all that would be lost is a rich people's pastime, and people like queering things like fox hunting if they can come up with a reason.
-----------------------------------------------
The most important thing to understand is that perceptions on all this are not driven by rationality, any more than on anything else. The main factor is that people are resentful. Resentment is a terrifying motive, and managing the resentment some people may feel towards hunting, colonialism, elites, anything to do with guns, etc... is the key.
