The number of trophy hunting specimens imported to Australia is on the rise, bucking a global decline in trophy imports, according to trade figures reported to the United Nations Environment Program.
International calls to ban trophy hunting have mounted since the killing of a Zimbabwe lion called Cecil in   July. Nationally, trophy hunting has been in the spotlight since   February, when photographs of former Australian cricketer Glenn McGrath posing with dead wildlife while on a hunting safari in Africa sparked a wave of outrage.
Trophy imports to Australia fluctuate significantly from year to year, but figures from the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Trade Database show a gradual rise. 

 This chart shows the number of trophy import records reported for Australia each year. The numbers don't account for volume (i.e. the number of trophies per shipment), which means one record may represent more than one trophy.
Trophy imports to Australia have doubled in the five years to 2013. 
Nearly 200 trophies from more than 20 different animal species were imported between 2009 and 2013, compared to 109 in the previous five-year period. Imports between 2004 and 2008 were particularly low compared to the previous decade.
Trophies may refer to animal parts, such as skins or teeth, or whole animals.
Rising incomes, decreased air travel costs and the strong Australian dollar prior to 2014 may be behind the increase in trophy imports, experts said. "When the Australian dollar was strong, people who wanted to go abroad and do these things might have seen it as a good opportunity to do it then," said Matthew Collis, Policy and Campaigns Manager for International Fund for Animal Welfare, Oceania.
Globally, trophy imports fell by 22 per cent between 2009 and 2013. This trend was largely driven by a decline in imports to the US, the world's leading trophy importer.
Three out of every four trophy specimens traded globally between 1975 and 2013 were sent to the US.
Australia took less than 0.2 per cent of the global total  in the 40 or so years to 2013, giving Australia a rank of 21 among the world's trophy hunting nations.
"They have a really entrenched hunting culture in the US," said ecologist and biodiversity policy expert Rosie Cooney, a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program.
"There are something like 15 million hunters in the US. It's just part of everyday life."
Nevertheless, trophy imports to the US have declined since the mid-2000s. Trophy imports to Germany and Spain, the next leading trophy importers, have also fallen over the past decade.
Trophy hunting is becoming less and less popular, Dr Cooney said.
"It's a really visceral reaction against hunting for sport. We've got a much more urbanised population than ever before. People don't go out hunting for food as frequently as they did generations ago."
As the chart below shows, despite the focus on hunting in Africa, Canada is the world's leading trophy exporter, possibly because of its proximity to the US.
One in two trophies exported worldwide between 1975 and 2013 came from Canada.
In the 1980s, Zimbabwe was the leading exporter, accounting for 60 per cent of trophies.
South Africa and Botswana were distant rivals during that decade, each accounting for less than 7 per cent of trophy exports.
Canada's trophy exports soared in the 1990s, which explains why black bears have been the most popular trophies worldwide since then.
Elephants were the most commonly-imported trophies in the 1980s.
In   March, federal environment Minister Greg Hunt announced a ban on the importation of lion trophies as part of a crackdown on canned hunting. Canned hunting, permitted in South Africa, involves breeding lions that are then hunted in a confined area.
Fewer than 50 lion trophies were brought into Australia between 1978 and 2013. Close to four times as many black bears trophies were imported over the same period. Elephants were the second-most popular trophy, although all elephant trophies were imported prior to 1994.
Mr Collis said he expects trophy imports to Australia to fall following the ban on lion trophy imports and the refusal of airlines like Qantas, Delta and others to carry hunting trophies.
"World opinion is shifting quickly on this now," he said, noting Botswana had recently banned all trophy hunting.
It's hard to tell if trophy hunting is becoming more popular among Australians, he said. "But it would of course be disturbing if Australians are doing more trophy hunting while the rest of the world is turning away from it.
"The issue is how we want to value these animals. Do we want to put a price tag on their heads and hang them from our walls or do we want to appreciate them for the magnificent, wild beings they are, that have every right to live on this planet, as we do?"
However, Dr Cooney said in some countries, conservation programs involving trophy hunting have decreased poaching, increased animal populations and benefited local communities.
"It's worth noting that southern Africa and North America are the only two places on earth where wildlife increased in the 20th century, and both conservation successes are built on hunting," she said.
"Trophy hunting is like anything. There's dreadful trophy hunting and there's actually some really well managed trophy hunting that's helping species ??? But overall, without trophy hunting, African wildlife outside of national parks would be in a much worse state."
For example, trophy hunting has played a key part in the recovery of the Southern White rhino population, Dr Cooney said, by generating money for wildlife management and gave landowners and economic incentive to keep rhinos on their lands.
"We've got a huge amount of poverty, an increasing population, extreme pressure in a lot of areas for land for agriculture and livestock. So if the wildlife outside national parks is going to stay, it's got to be as economically viable as land use," she said.
"That's why many Cecil the lions are still alive today, because private landowners are protecting them."
Note: Quantity data on number of trophies refer to importer-reported figures unless otherwise specified.