In November, the Trump administration made an announcement that the ban set in place in 2014 on importing ‘trophies,’ i.e. elephant body parts such as tusks, tails and ears, would be lifted. A day later, the President himself tweeted that that decision has been put on hold, and that he would think over all of the facts before making it permanent. Because of that brief episode, much attention has been brought to the worrying problem of declining elephant populations. According to the Great Elephant Census, elephant populations shrank 30 percent in just seven years, from 2007 to 2014. One man, Hunter L. Chasseur, believes that this problem can be solved through very simple means- namely, by using the same strategy used to take care of the Dodo bird and the Passenger pigeon.

“If all elephants are hunted down and killed, they won’t be endangered anymore, will they?” Chasseur said. “No one complained when woolly mammoths went extinct. In fact, it gives archaeologists something to do. So, problem solved!”

This idea has been dismissed by most conservationists around the country as being completely counterintuitive and vying for the opposite outcome of what is desired. Norm B. Nice, an expert in elephant demography and the founder of Ele-Pants, the international pants-selling fundraiser for the elephant protection fund, believes that killing off all elephants will, in fact, kill off all elephants.

“It makes exactly zero sense. Hunting all African elephants down would ruin the African ecosystem!” Nice said, “Killing elephants is not the answer to saving them.”

Nice also emphasized the importance of elephants to the circus, tourism and zoo businesses. Without elephants, there would be no entertainment elephants or elephants to observe in their natural artificial habitats. According to Nice, killing elephants would cut these industries off at the knees.

However, despite Nice’s objections and the objections of his contemporaries, Chasseurs’ statements, spread through his blog, www.letskillallelephants.com, have sparked a grassroots movement in Chasseur’s home state of West Carolina. His followers, calling themselves ‘Extinctionists,’ have begun a campaign supporting the lifting of all hunting bans in Africa.

Helena B. Jäger, The Extinctionists’ organizing secretary, defends their plan as logical and the obvious next step towards world peace. She explains that their strategy ceases the worry about elephants being endangered and instead opens up numerous opportunities to benefit off of their deaths.

“There are so many benefits of elephants going extinct,” Jäger said. “We’ll save money by not needing to recreate and preserve them of their habitats. We’ll increase profits by selling our elephants merchandise, which will grow in price exponentially after their death. Artificial elephants are the wave of the future. Who needs real elephants when you’ve got Dumbo, who is much cuter and much less smelly?”

Extinctionists exist on both sides of the party line and from all walks of life, according to Chasseur. Extinctionists, Chasseur says, are on the side of science and are simply enforcing natural selection.

“Species either adapt or die,” Chasseur said. “We just help them along by naturally selecting elephants as the ones to go first.”

Nice responded by admonishing that is the opposite of what natural selection is.

“Who gave these people diplomas?” Nice said.

Chasseur has remained impartial, criticizing both main political parties for different reasons. He criticizes Democrats for being “Worried Willies,” and criticizes Republicans, even the White House, for being too light handed with this issue.

“The White House itself said in a statement that their research reflected an increase in elephant numbers if the hunting ban was lifted,” Chasseur said. “That’s putting the elephants’ needs above our own. We believe that would simply make things more complicated and opt for a more basic solution. Get rid of hunting ban, and elevate the elephants. Get rid of elephants, and elevate the world!”