British trophy hunters are killing animals extinct in the wild and bringing their carcasses home as “trophies”, Sir Ranulph Fiennes has said.

The animals are those which British scientists and zoos have spent decades trying to protect.

Sir Ranulph said it was “madness” the UK government allowed for people to hunt such animals, usually at private estates, and take their heads and pelts home after so much work has gone into trying to protect them.

Extinct animals shot and brought to the UK as trophies include the scimitar-horned oryx, and the Arabian Oryx, which was hunted to extinction in 1972.

Twenty-eight trophies of scimitar-horned oryxes shot on private game reserves have been brought back to the UK by British hunters…