Botswana Threatens to Deport Elephants to Europe in Fight Over Hunting
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Earlier this year, Germany's environmental ministry floated a proposal to impose stricter limits on the import of hunting trophies into the country out of concern for poaching. The move didn't exactly go over well with the president of Botswana, who is now threatening to send 20,000 elephants to the European country.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi shared his honest thoughts about the idea with German newspaper Bild. Masisi believes that conservation efforts have caused the local elephant population to balloon to nearly 130,000 and that hunting is an essential component of population control. It comes after Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2014 but reversed its decision in 2019 after local communities spoke out against the law. Now, to remedy the problem of elephant overpopulation, the country issues hunting quotas.
"It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana," he stated plainly. "We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world."
One possible solution Masisi floated was for Germany to walk the walk instead of simply talking the talk. He proposed that Germans should "live together with the animals in the way you are trying to tell us to." Of course, you can see wild animals in the Tiergarten, but it would be totally different to see elephants roaming the streets of Berlin. Masisi insisted he wasn't playing around. "This is not a joke," he said.
Botswana is home to the world's largest elephant population and is already working to get its numbers down. It's offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique. And Germany isn't the only European country to receive this invitation from Masisi's government, as Botswanan officials in March threatened to send 10,000 elephants to London.
"We would like to offer such a gift to Germany," Masisi said. "[We will] not take 'no' for an answer."
Time will tell if African elephants will begin roaming the thoroughfares of major European cities.
