Botswana’s elephant hunting quota threatens to wipe out mature bulls: Report

The reintroduction of elephant trophy hunting in Botswana in 2019, following a five-year moratorium, is likely severely depleting the number of large, older bulls, according to a recent report. This has put the country’s elephant population at risk and induced behavioral changes in the mammals, researchers say. Since 2019, Botswana has permitted roughly 400 elephants to be hunted, about 0.3% of the country’s elephant population. Trophy hunters prefer tuskers, or elephants with large tusks, which they claim as “trophies.” These tend to be mature bulls, older than 30 years, the report by Elephants Without Borders (EWB), a Botswana-based nonprofit, notes. To find out how the quota and other factors affect bulls in elephant populations, the EWB researchers ran simulation models. The models pro