Elephant hunting ups and downs Not yet the end of the game!
Elephant hunting is a touchy subject. Because of widespread commercial poaching, Africa’s elephant population has plummeted in the last fifty years. The worst carnage took place in the seventies and eighties, when elephants were eradicated from huge areas. Elephants are slow breeders with a natural increase about three per cent. Even so, from about 1990 there were two decades of steady regrowth. The worldwide recession of 2009 brought on a new wave of commercial poaching, which has not subsided.
Africa is a huge continent of fifty-four nations. Elephant management and the question of legal elephant hunting can only be properly addressed by the countries that host them. Elephants may have once occurred almost everywhere over the continent, but certainly do not today - the North African race has been extinct for two thousand years! Many African countries have no elephants, or small populations in protected enclaves; other countries have too many elephants!
Botswana is a classic example of this. A low estimate of Botswana’s elephants suggests 130,000; higher estimates range from 270,000 to 300,000 elephants. It is believed there are 350,000 to 450,000 African elephants on the continent. Whether you prefer the high or low numbers, there are two irrefutable facts: Botswana holds a high percentage of Africa’s remaining elephants, and they are grossly overpopulated. Botswana is an arid country, and each elephant consumes over 200 kg of plant material daily. Habitat damage is another fact, with much of the Chobe National Park almost as barren as the surface of the moon.
When Botswana (then Bechuanaland) opened to safari hunting in 1964, elephants were on license… but there were far fewer than today. Botswana has never “culled” her elephants, and has
