Posted on 06/20/2019 11:52:41 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
They’re magnificent creatures, but Botswana has too many of them in the wrong places.
Many well-meaning animal lovers in the West reacted with anguish when my government announced in May that Botswana would not renew a temporary ban on hunting elephants and other protected wildlife. Others reacted with anger. We were accused of greed, corruption and political pandering, of being willing to sacrifice one of God’s noblest creations for a few extra dollars from wealthy foreigners who enjoy shooting and killing things.
Even though their numbers have declined throughout the rest of Africa, our elephant population has exploded, from roughly 50,000 in the mid 1990s to more than 130,000 today. But in the wild they are not the gentle giants portrayed on television and film. As those who live alongside them know, elephants can be aggressive, violent and enormously dangerous.
So how does hunting help? First, lifting the ban will help local people protect themselves. In the past, when people were allowed to shoot rogue elephants who wandered into inhabited areas, conflict between humans and elephants was rare. If elephants learn that an area is dangerous, they will avoid it.
the key to successful wildlife conservation is “community-based resource management.” Put simply, habitat loss, poaching and other problems that threaten endangered species cannot be solved without the support of local people. To win that crucial support, elephants need to constitute a benefit, not a burden, to those who live side-by-side with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Or maybe there are too many Botswanaians in the wrong places.
I think the President of Botswana makes some good arguments. Once they finish clearing the land mines in Angola a lot of the elephants can be sent there. There may be too many of them in Botswana but some can be sent to safe environments elsewhere.
Fwiw,
I think that the problem with elephants is NOT too many or too few. Instead, it’s a MALDISTRIBUTION.
As some here have guessed, I’m a TX Master Naturalist & believe that we should be figuring out how to REDISTRIBUTE elephants. = Call it: ELEPHANT OSMOSIS.
Once that redistribution is done, then allow LIMITED trophy hunting for the excess elephants.
Yours, TMN78247
EXACTLY CORRECT.
Yours, TMN78247
Fyi, I was “infected with” Africanhuntitis by Robert C. Ruark in HORN OF THE HUNTER, when I was about 12YO.
(Then my Darla read the book & now she is going too.)
“She who must be obeyed” wants a “spotted kitty pelt” to drape over the couch BUT she is not nearly as excited about a Cape Buff looking down from the den wall.
Yours, TMN78247
Oh, that was a fun trip down the rabbit’s hole!
First The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, all nineteen of them!!!
Then on to the author, Alexander McCall Smith...
Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh... returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found the law school and teach law at the University of Botswana. While there, he co-wrote The Criminal Law of Botswana ... He has helped to found Botswana’s first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies’ Opera House, for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta...
McCall Smith purchased the Cairns of Coll, a remote, uninhabited chain of islets in the Hebrides.
Does this guy sleep at night?
PETA is FILLED with IDIOTS, MORONS & CRETINS.
Yours, TMN78247
FYI, I cannot eat a whole Cape Buff, so I will “share the bounty” with the local folks & happily. = Think of it as an expanded HUNTERS FOR THE HUNGRY.
Also, I have ZERO interest in trying to eat a leopard, though I have had bobcat, BBQed.
Yours, TMN78247
He was born in Southern Rhodesia, which is called something else now.
The African countries that license the hunting of elephants are the only ones that have healthy herds. None of the others have discretionary funds enough to protect them from poaching.
That’s a good observation. So....
Why not ask the PETA types to pony up: The Botswanan Federal Gov’t will sell excess elephants to anyone who can demonstrate ability to safely move an elephant or elephants to areas where they are wanted and will be secure from poaching (also must be demonstrated or documented.) Perhaps a refundable deposit should be required. ;-)
Other legal niceties and requirements of the various parties can be added. Measures to minimize corruption would be needed as well.
EXACTLY TRUE.
Yours, TMN78247
It costs about $30-50K to shoot an elephant. If the economic reason for keeping them around doesn’t exist, neither will the elephants. It is ok.
In other words, let’s say you’re a landowner who has 35 elephants ruining your fences tearing down trees and other general destruction. There is no hunting, so no reason to put up with them. What would you do?
If Kenya allowed hunting, the PH’s (guides) would patrol their hunting area to protect their livelihood. I think since they banned hunting the population has gone from 300k to 20k or so.
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