Donald Trump’s sons investigated over African hunting spree

THE sons of US tycoon Donald Trump are at the centre of an investigation into the legality of a hunting spree in Zimbabwe after photos showed up online of the brothers posing with dead game animals.

The independent Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said that his sons Donald Jr and Eric killed an elephant, an endangered leopard, a buffalo, a crocodile and other “big game” animals on a 2011 trip arranged by a South African safari firm that is not registered in Zimbabwe.

Photographs of the brothers - one with the dead leopard and another showing one brother holding up an elephant’s severed tail in one hand and a knife in the other - have been withdrawn from at least one website after a flurry of protests.

Animal protection groups were outraged at how “rich people” had boasted about their “shocking and unethical” behaviour, the trust said.

Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the conservationists’ alliance, said investigators are sifting through records on whether licence and trophy fees were paid and if the South African firm had been cleared by Zimbabwe wildlife authorities to operate in the north-western province near Victoria Falls.