US president’s eldest son enjoys hunting trip in Spain

Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son of the US president, left the Spanish province of Teruel early Tuesday morning after spending three days there on a hunting trip.

The American businessman was in Spain to hunt Iberian ibex, a type of wild goat native to the peninsula, said Sandra Pérez, the manager of Hotel Trufa Negra, the establishment where he stayed. Trump Jr. reportedly shot down two specimens inside a game preserve run by a company called Wild Hunting Spain in the municipality of Nogueruelas.

The hotel is located in Mora de Rubielos, a village of 1,500 residents located 250 kilometers east of Madrid. Trump Jr. also visited the nearby municipalities of Nogueruelas, Gúdar, Linares de Mora and Alcalá de la Selva.

Also with Trump Jr. were a group of his friends and a security detail. The trip was organized under the guidance of US intelligence services and the special services of Spain’s Civil Guard.

“Trump is very familiar with the fauna of the Iberian peninsula, but he did not know this area and he paid special attention to our truffles, as he was unaware that this region produced so many,” said José Hernández, one of the guides. The demarcation of Gúdar-Javalambre produces on average around 80% of the world’s harvest of black truffles, said the local tourism association.

Trump Jr. was also impressed by the architectural style in this mountainous region. In a photograph posted on his Instagram account, he posed in front of a low stone building of the type traditionally used for cattle and wrote: “Ran into this very cool ancient farmhouse today in the Beceite Mountains of Spain with some of my friends. I’m told it has been standing here for centuries... they don’t build things like they used to.”

It was the US Embassy that made the hotel reservation, without revealing the identity of the guest who would be staying there. Once the owners were notified, they were asked to keep quiet until the end of the trip, due to the private nature of the same.

Trump Jr.’s love of hunting has attracted criticism in the past. Shortly before the announcement in March that he and his wife Vanessa Kay Haydon were divorcing, he secured a permit to carry a concealed weapon from the state of Pennsylvania, a fact that made news headlines in the wake of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

English version by Susana Urra.