Botswana lifts ban on elephant hunting
After five years, hunting will now be allowed in Botswana, home to about a third of Africa’s savanna elephants.
After a five-year suspension, the government of Botswana has decided once again to allow sport hunters to kill elephants, according to a statement issued on May 22 by the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resource Conservation and Tourism.
Botswana is home to more than 130,000 elephants—about a third of Africa’s remaining savanna elephants—and it appeared to have largely escaped the recent ivory poaching crisis. Continent-wide elephant numbers dropped by 30 percent between 2007 and 2014, according to the Great Elephant Census, an 18-country aerial elephant count conducted by Elephants Without Borders that was completed in 2016 and funded by Vulcan.
While hunting elephants is now legal in Botswana, American sport hunters may not rush there because it’s unlikely they’d be
