Botswana Blasts Hunting Critic, Says Elephant Killings Are Negligible
Botswana Blasts Hunting Critic, Says Elephant Killings Are Negligible
Mqondisi Dube, VOA Zimbabwe
September 13, 2023
The Botswana government responded to criticism from an anti-hunting
activist, saying the number of elephants legally killed by hunters since
the lifting of a hunting ban in 2019 is negligible.
South Africa-based activist Adam Cruise recently published a report titled
“Trophy Hunting in Botswana: a tale of declining wildlife, corruption,
exploitation and impoverishment.”
In it, Cruise, who is among the leading campaigners pushing for a ban on
trophy hunting, said that the killing of elephants and other large animals
threatens Botswana’s wildlife.
Additionally, he said that hunting impoverishes communities because they do
not benefit from revenue generated from the sport.
Thato Raphaka, permanent secretary in Botswana’s Ministry of Environment
and Tourism, described Cruise’s report as malicious and misleading.
Raphaka, in a statement, said that the allotment of hunted animals is
approved by international conservation body CITES, and that the number of
elephants killed compared to the overall elephant population is negligible.
Elephants are considered an endangered species, but protection measures
have allowed their numbers to grow in southern Africa. A recent census of
the Kavango Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area, or KAZA, found that
nearly 230,000 elephants live in the five-country protected zone.
About 130,000 of the elephants live in Botswana.
Isaac Theophilus, the chief executive of the nonprofit Botswana Wildlife
Producers Association, supported the government’s stance, saying, “Botswana
is a free and democratic country capable of managing her own resources
without outside interference.”
He said that the country manages its resources, including wildlife, for
economic development and to improve the people’s livelihoods.
“It is not by chance that the country has so many wildlife resources
roaming around," Theophilus said.
International hunters can currently buy licenses to shoot about 300
elephants in Botswana per season. Theophilus said that number is reasonable.
“The hunting quota for elephants, which has been less than [the] 400 [that]
CITES approved, is very conservative,” he said. “Based on recently released
KAZA aerial survey results, the quota is less than 0.003% of the
population. Any scientist can tell you that this is an extremely
conservative quota.”
Conservationist Map Ives said that the government conducted countrywide
consultations prior to reintroducing the sport in 2019, and that the
majority of the population supported trophy hunting.
“The number of elephants hunted are of course negligible compared to those
being born,” Ives said. “I don’t know if that argument holds any water.
What I do know is that in a democracy, which Botswana is clearly a
democracy, most of the people support hunting, based probably on a
historical culture.”
Ives said he doubts that the debate over trophy hunting will go away
because of growing opposition in many Western countries, especially in
Europe.
“The last outpost of hunting seemingly is here in southern Africa, where
there is still a large number of elephants, for example, and there is still
a number of people that get a great deal of pleasure from hunting,” he said.
Some western countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, are
pushing for a ban on legally harvested animal trophies from Africa.
A bill called the Hunting Trophies Import Prohibition is being debated
before the U.K.’s House of Lords.