Botswana Auctions Elephant Hunting Licenses

Botswana held an auction for elephant hunting licenses on Friday, February 7, 2020. Although the African nation instituted an elephant hunting ban in 2014, they lifted it in 2019. (1, 2)

The auction, which the firm Auction It Ltd. organized, allowed bidders to purchase licensing packages for 10 elephants. Seven packages were available, and six were sold to expedition operators, who will sell them to trophy hunters for a profit. The auction raised $2.1 million, for an average price of $39,000 per elephant. All of the money will go directly to Botswana’s government. (1, 3)

Elephant Hunting Ban Lifted

Botswana’s elephant hunting ban, which was put in place in 2014, was lifted in 2019. The government cited conflict between humans and the animals, as well as crop destruction, as reasons for lifting the ban. President Mokgweetsi Masisi put together a committee to review the ban in 2019. The committee recommended that the country allow hunting again, and Masisi followed their suggestion. (2)

Some critics of the hunting ban believed that small farmers were negatively affected by it. Partially because of climate change, elephants have been expanding their migration areas. When they wander into villages or onto farmland, elephants can destroy crops and injure or even kill people. (2)

However, some critics believe that Masisi’s intentions in lifting the ban may be purely political. Allowing elephant hunting will increase his popularity in rural areas, where farmers consider elephants a nuisance. The elephant hunting ban is just one of the many laws passed by the previous administration that Masisi has reversed. (2)

Conservation Concerns

Both the hunting license auction and lifting the elephant hunting ban drew widespread criticism from conservationists. While Botswana’s government sold 60 hunting licenses at the auction, they also set a quota for killing 272 elephants in 2020. (1)

With 130,000 elephants, Botswana does have the largest elephant population in the world. But Africa’s overall elephant population declined dramatically between the years of 1979 and 2015, falling from 1.3 million to just 415,000. A report from the IUCN Species Survival Commission cited poaching for ivory, loss of habitat, and human-elephant conflict as the reason for elephants’ population decline. (1, 4)

And the decrease in population due to poaching is greater than the annual birth rate of African elephants, according to Eduardo Goncalves, the founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, who spoke to The Independent. Hunting can also have long-lasting consequences for elephant genetics. (5)

“Trophy hunting is artificial selection. By targeting the biggest and strongest animals, it leaves the weaker, smaller animals behind,” Goncalves told The Independent. “This means the best genes are being lost, so the species will be less able to adapt to accelerating climate change, it will be more prone to disease, and the risk of extinction is greater.” (5)

Making Human-Elephant Conflict Worse

And Botswana’s elephant killing quota could actually make human-elephant conflict worse, says Audrey Delsink. Delsink is the wildlife director for Humane Society International/Africa and an elephant biologist. She told CBS News, “Issuing a blanket quota to say, ‘Okay we’re going to take X amount of elephants off in this area,’ first of all there’s no guarantee that they will be targeting the actual problem elephants that are responsible for the damaged behavior.” (1)

And the hunting quota will likely remove important elephant role models from their herds. Delsink said that older bull elephants curb younger bull elephants’ destructive behavior. They also play an important role in the social wellbeing of the herd. But older bull elephants are the ones most likely to be killed by hunters. (1)

“Whether it’s poacher or trophy hunter, he’s going to go and select the biggest bull he possibly can,” Delsink said. “The biggest, oldest, maturest bull with the biggest tusks. So, in effect, what they’re doing, is they’re taking out a vital component of the bull society.” (2)

When that happens, Delsink stressed, younger elephants “become juvenile delinquents and display all sorts of abnormal behavior.” This can lead to worse conflict between elephants and people in rural areas. (1)

Besides conservation-related concerns, some people fear that killing elephants will damage Botswana’s economy. Tourists may choose to visit other African countries in response. As tourism makes up one-fifth of Botswana’s economy, this would be disastrous. And while trophy hunters may bring large sums of money to rural communities when they visit, these are one-off profits. An elephant can attract $2 million in nature tourism over its lifetime. (3, 5)