Elephants hunting used to be a common activity. This was banned in Kenya in 1973 and in Botswana in 2014. The trade in Elephant parts was banned in 1989.
For many years, however, conservationists have called for rich countries to ban imports of hunting trophies on a country by country basis. This is for a simple reason – a reserve like the Kruger, has a real issue with a growing elephant population, yet at the same time Nigeria has only 400 elephants left. Tanzania has seen a reduction of elephants of 63%, while Mozambique has seen a reduction of 34%.
This new ruling suggests that imports are only allowed from populations which are large enough to support the loss. Now, I would be interested as to how this is worked out. For instance, could I buy a tiny parcel of land, on the edge of a large reserve, and allow any elephants that step on my land to be hunted?
- Somewhere like the Selous game reserve, would in theory be acceptable for elephant hunting. If we go back to the 1976 there were approaching 109,000 elephants. However that population is now thought to be around 13,000 – hunting should be banned until the population has recovered. If a hunting reserve cannot afford to police well enough to eliminate poaching, it should not be allowed to hunt (the number of poached and hunted elephants must be below safety levels.
- The Serengeti ecosystem also does not have a large elephant populatino so cannot allow hunting
- The African forest elephant is considered critically endangered, so none of these elephants should be hunted
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My feeling is, that it is unacceptable for a rich western country to say that you can import elephant trophies as a blanket statement. Instead, each country needs to assess each elephant population and issue a list of populations that can afford some human hunting. What is more, this work should be carried out by an organisation like CITES. Only places with enormous elephant populations that are protected and are growing, should then be allowed to issue hunting licenses – hunters regularly claim that they are conservationists, and as such should be quite happy with this work.
Conclusion: this new rule in America is positive, but only if actively enforced. There needs to be a list of reserves and places with enough elephants to be safely hunted (and this list needs updating regularly)
I personally find the whole process unpleasant, and I would like there to be another option, to get up and close with wild elephants but leave with them alive. There are places on the planet where too few people are interested in visiting to make photographic safari worthwhile, and where hunting might protect the majority of the elephant population – but this is the one caveat that I am interested in giving.Â
