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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10012136
Earlier this year, Germany’s environment ministry suggested there should be stricter limits on importing trophies from hunting animals.
Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media this would only impoverish people in his country.
He said elephant numbers had exploded as a result of conservation efforts, and hunting helped keep them in check.
Germans should “live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to”, Mr Masisi told German newspaper Bild. “This is no joke.”
Botswana is home to about a third of the world’s elephant population - over 130,000 - more than it has space for.
Herds were causing damage to property, eating crops and trampling residents, Mr Masisi said.
Botswana has previously given 8,000 elephants to neighbouring Angola, and has offered hundreds more to Mozambique, as a means of bringing the population down.
“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Mr Masisi said, adding that he would not take no for an answer.
Botswana’s Wildlife Minister Dumezweni Mthimkhulu last month threatened to send 10,000 elephants to London’s Hyde Park so British people could “have a taste of living alongside” them.
In March, UK MPs voted to support a ban on importing hunting trophies, but the legislation has further scrutiny to pass before becoming law.
Ignoring any of the (very complicated) issues around human/elephant interactions there’s a strictly ecological reason for limited hunting.
Herds have an issue where males past breeding age still try to edge out younger males. These older males can be destructive and violent and it’s better for the health of the herd if they’re out of the picture when they can’t breed anymore.
Those are the elephants that hunting licences are issued for.
I fully understand the logic behind this, but as a very, very flawed human, I still hate the idea of hunting and killing very intelligent and potentially sapient/sentient animal because it’s more convenient for us. It just feels wrong, especially given that we have documented proof of them in mourning after finding one of their own dead.
It’s not because it’s more convenient for us, it’s because it’s better for the long term health of the herd and the species.
During times when no hunting licenses are sold (there are only so many wealthy hunters) the preserve rangers have to cull the older males themselves. If they don’t the older males will kill younger males to try to defend females they can no longer breed with. Elephants die either way, but fewer (and older ones) die with controlled hunting.
It’s also worth remembering that nature is fucking brutal. The ways most herbivores die are by starving, succumbing to disease, or being eaten alive. Getting shot through the heart is the best way to go for an old bull elephant.