New ruling means US big game hunters won't be able to bring home African lion parts as trophies

Officials said the plan was in the offing long before Cecil the lion’s death

A new ruling will virtually prohibit big game hunters from shipping lion parts back to the US (Corbis)

It got a lot harder today for American big game hunters to bring lion trophies back home thanks to a new order to include African lions under special federal protection, a move at least partially inspired by the brouhaha that followed the killing in Zimbabwe of Cecil the lion five months ago by a Minnesota dentist.

Cecil the Lion, before he was killed by American hunter Walter Palmer (AP)

The Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington for the first time designated lions from Central and West Africa as “endangered”, which will virtually prohibit hunters from shipping lion parts – whether a head, a paw or just a lion skin – back to the US.

Lions from other parts of the continent are to be categorised as “threatened”. Shipping of their parts will be more strictly governed.

Since Walter Palmer stirred global outrage by shooting the beloved Cecil, France has announced a ban on importing lion trophies and Britain has promised to enact a similar measure soon.

Officials with the US Wildlife Service noted that the new order was in the offing long before Cecil’s demise.Its provisions may have been tightened, however, as a result of the furore it created. The government will now refuse a lion-part import permit for any hunter who has previously broken federal or state wildlife laws. Mr Palmer was found in 2008 to have lied about the true whereabouts of a black bear he shot in Wisconsin that year.