'Will Flood Your Countries With Elephants', Here Is Why Botswana Is Threatening Germany, UK
Botswana has issued an unusual 'threat' to Germany -- to flood that country with 20,000 elephants. The move is in response to German efforts to restrict trophy hunting, a controversial practice of which African countries like Botswana are beneficiaries.
The African nation of Botswana has issued an unusual 'threat' to Germany -- to flood that country with 20,000 elephants. The move is in response to German efforts to restrict trophy hunting, a controversial practice of which African countries like Botswana are beneficiaries.
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What is trophy hunting
Trophy hunting is the hunting of wildlife for sport by wealthy hunters who pay large sums to shoot wild animals including tigers, lions and elephants. The hunters also get to take home parts of the animal's body including head, bones, or skin as trophies.
The controversial practice is a massive source of income for some impoverished nations like Botswana which argue that the money earned from it, at least in part goes into conservation efforts.
Why Germany, UK want to restrict trophy hunting
Recently Germany's environment ministry had suggested there should be stricter limits on importing trophies from hunting animals.
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Last month, UK MPs had voted to support a ban on importing hunting trophies.
However, Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi argues that such restrictions will only result in people of his country living in poverty.
How Botswana has responded
In response to the German move, President Masisi said his country would gift 20,000 elephants to Germany so that Germans could learn to live with the animals the same way they had been telling his people should.
Masisi also made it clear that he was not joking and wouldn't take no for an answer.
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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.
Botswana's problem of too many elephants
Botswana, a landlocked country that is spread across an area of 581,730 square kilometres is home to a third of the world's elephant population.
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According to estimates, there are around 130,000 elephants in Botswana. According to the authorities due to conservation efforts and a ban on trophy hunting in 2014, the elephant population there has exploded. Botswana lifted the trophy hunting ban in 2019 due to protests by locals amid an increase in human-animal conflict.
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