PAY-TO-SLAY CLAUSE IN ANTI-HUNT LAWS

Campaigners slam loophole for rich

-  CHRIS McLAUGHLIN

HUNTERS will still be able to import slain lions, rhinos, elephants and even polar bears under a new law’s perverse “pay-to-slay” clause.

A ban outlawing the importing of the sick souvenirs is to be unveiled in the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday.

Yet a loophole allows wealthy collectors to bring in tusks, skins and stuffed carcasses by paying tens of thousands for a “conservation exemption” to obtain special permits for hunts and imports.

The cash is supposed to be used for conservation and community developments projects, mostly in Africa.

But critics have slammed it as a cop-out and blasted hunters who pose with their kills as “beaming morons”.

Claire Bass, director of the Humane Society International, said: “Allowing hunting trophies to be imported under a fig leaf of supposed conservation benefit would undermine the Government’s goal of having the strongest hunting trophy ban in the world.