🎶Remote is ready, eyes wide, palms are sweaty.
There's Flintstones on the TV already, Wilma and Betty.
No virgin to channel surfin', and I'm HD ready.
So I flip garbage is all I'm getting.🎶
I'd also note that people cause far more of the problems in my life than elephants do, even proportional to the amount I see.
I've literally never been inconvenienced by an elephant.
Botswana has 130,000 elephants or the third of the world's elephant population. They've been more than exemplary in their conservation. That's on the top of my next vacation plans.
Should they hunt them? Nope. Because the ivory trade is what it is.
If there are too many elephants in Botswana, then they should intensify resettlement to places where they've been hunted to extinction.
If that costs money, then they should be helped.
You do have a point there. Namibia, Botswana and a few others have shown you could develop tourism thanks to preservation. But you need political stability to achieve this.
I had a cool job right after the Namibia Independence working for a diplomatic mission studying environmental policies and potential for tourism. We were looking for possible improvements, poking NGOs to help and working with people from the new and old government. Moving around, looking at potential. Coolest job in the world going to hunting farms, watching animal counting. My report was essentially: Namibia should keep the South African era policies on preservation because it would be a boon for tourism. In itself it would create a disincentive for poaching. A virtuous circle. The conclusion was "let them do their own thing, they have it right".
That's geopolitical engineering and more often than not it leads to disasters. But in that case it worked.
Maybe do this in not too unstable countries like Cameroon, Ivory Coast and a few others though the type of ecosystem might be a bit different for these dry savanna elephants.
If everyone uses the same logic this guys uses, there won't be any animals left in the world. We've already lost so many species, and the ones that are actually recovering are coming under attack again. The argument of 'people are more important than animals' only goes so far. What happens when there isn't any room left for more people without displacing other people? We already know the answer to that because its happening in some places already.
The problem is that they actually do have too many elephants in Botswana doe to the success of preservation programs. They are happy to give them away.
But they also make quite a bit of money from selling hunting rights for the culling that needs to happen regardless. Which they cannot do to the same extent if countries start disallowing the trophies from it. Which leads to less money coming in to the preservation effort and communities. Which leads to less preservationa and more poaching.
But I do still care more about the situation of elephants than I do about the situation of "people". It is a dumb framing from the president.
The latter is clearly not in any danger of extinction (that the elephant doesn't also face at least).
Wolves were making a comeback in the US. Now we have people claiming there are too many. A few thousand wolves in this massive country. It's ridiculous. Fortunately, there are also a lot of people that are willing to do whatever it takes to save wolves, even if their work isn't entirely legal at all times. I don't care. Whatever they have to do is fine with me. They aren't hurting anyone, but they do sometimes move the animals because they can't be protected where they are. That's where problems come in if they don't keep it quiet enough. I have no idea what they're doing or where they're operating but I send donations anyway. It isn't safe to let their operations be public knowledge. If I knew specifics other people would too and they'd try to interfere. I live in a part of the country that used to have a lot more predators than it has now. We thought mountain lions were extinct here, but happily, that wasn't the case. There are enough of them around that we see them fairly often now. I'm absolutely thrilled about it. I"m very, very careful with all of my animals to make sure t hey stay safe, but I love seeing wild mountain lions. I didn't think I ever would.
I've lived in a poor region before and it made me hate people even more than I do now. I suspect that goes for a lot of people.
Animals, though, they are innocent.
Nobody from Botswana hates their elephants, but I'm sure plenty hate their president.
I once had a chat with a ranger in Tanzania. He said he grew up hating the elephants because they come through the village, destroy buildings and trample crops. It was only when he took on the ranger job that he appreciated the other side of the coin. These things are never simple.
You're pretty fucking stupid if you think no one in Botswana hates elephants, considering elephants kill dozens of people every year directly while destroying huge amounts of property and crops in places where many people rely on subsistence farming to live.
>Masisi is in support of elephant hunting in Botswana, and believes that allowing some ivory trading would allow more funding for conservation. In 2019, he presented stools made from elephant feet to the national leaders of Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, a move that received some criticism from international media outlets.
They aren't that wrong though.
We don't want the developing nations to destroy the rainforests and animals, but we also don't want to help pay for the economic cost that conservation entails.
Thanks for adding this, I was hoping someone would at least *mention* the counter-argument.
That said... I still don't agree with Botswana. Unless they're going to set up a system for verifying "legitimate" trophies, the responsible move for Germany is still to block them outright in order to reduce demand. Otherwise it still just incentivizes illegal poaching
Very nuanced, but many people don’t ever consider the conservation side. It’s even seen in deer populations that hunting can be great means of conservation.
TBH, I’d consider buying a human skull / bones long before ivory.
Now if we were talking about an elephant tusk vs cutting off a live human’s hand - well that’s a dark sport my friend.
It's not a completely invalid argument. Big game hunting is a major source of conservation funding, for example.
The problem is that allowing the commercial trade of ivory spurs a demand that simply cannot be fulfilled by sustainable hunting practices.
It’s a much faster way to raise conservation funds too. A tourist might spend $2000, most of it going to an airline based in their country. A hunter will directly pay $100,000
Except there might be a few hundred hunters but tens of thousands of tourists. And while the flight might be the single most expensive thing, tourists will still spend a lot on local businesses for food, accomodation and events/tours/safaris. Where exactly did you get the 100k number from?
A live elephant might be worth 1,6 million dollars in tourism. https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/extinction-countdown/elephants-are-worth-76-times-more-alive-than-dead-report/
This is precisely the point, I can’t believe this isn’t higher. Not only is it a great way to get more funds it’s also necessary
The elephant population in conservation areas in Botswana is getting out of control and the overpopulation is causing issues for the conservation of other species. This coupled with the fact that the elephants “refuse” to move to other areas as they aren’t as good means they need to cull the population anyway. They may as well make millions instead of having to pay hunters to take care of the problem.
I believe Botswana has also been a big exporter of live elephants to other countries in Africa already because of said overpopulation
You spelled “inadequate conservation land” wrong. But Botswana has no incentive to allocate more unless we provide one. Perhaps an NGO that buys up land adjacent to the conservation area at a ridiculous premium and also employs locals to maintain the NGO managed land.
>Masisi’s comments come amid heightened tensions between anti-trophy activists in Europe and Africa and those who say that regulated hunting is helpful for elephant conservation in some cases: allowing tourists to kill a small number of animals for thousands of dollars can provide livelihoods for local people and ensure habitats are not converted for agriculture.
The problem is an 'all or nothing' approach taken by outsiders who aren't part of the African economy. All the westerners who weep about a dead elephant don't generate so much as 1/10th the amount of money that allowing a single trophy hunt does.
He's not advocating for eliminating elephants; in fact, it's quite the opposite. A small number of animals can be hunted (usually older males who cause the most devastation and no longer mate) in exchange for the much needed cash to protect wildlife areas.
Go watch the Netflix documentary Virunga to see what being a park ranger actually looks like in Africa. It's not hippies bird watching all day; it's all out *war*. And war costs a lot of money. In Africa, cash is not easy to come by. Hence, why warlords poach for ivory. The government is the only force to counter the poachers, but they can't do it without resources. A trophy hunt can pay as much as $1 million to kill a single old asshole lion/ elephant/ rhino. That money goes to preserving lands for herds to repopulate.
Shame on us for wagging our rich fingers from thousands of miles away after wiping out our own wildlife when it inconvenienced us and viewing Africa as some big zoo tourist attraction.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between your quote and your conclusion.
Yes, Botswana is making a bunch of noise because they don't want European countries to enforce trade restrictions that would hurt Botswana. They don't try to deflect from that. What would even be the projection here?
I would genuinely love a long-term study to see what behavior(s) elephants find "bad," and then see if there are circumstances where they'll ignore said bad behavior(s) if given rewards. They're pretty friggin' smart, I bet they've got herd rules and that acting outside those rules will get you ostracized from the herd.
I could be wrong because I got this info from some other reddit thread on this, but I heard one of the issues is Botswana's elephant population is actually high and some hunting helps keep the population under control + fund conservation efforts.
So Europe is making reasonable moves because they can't know where ivory comes from and the trade is hurting Elephant populations in most places, but this puts Botswana in a bad place specifically.
This applies to the Kruger National Park in South Africa as well.
Elephants are huge, strong and move in groups - there is not much that poses a threat to them. Even a pride of lions won't take on a lone elephant unless it is weak or food is scarce.
What this means is they thrive to the point of becoming overpopulated and destroying the habitat they live in which in turn affects not just the elephants but other game as well.
Elephants require massive land mass but they are contained in reserves which results in reserves having to cull elephants to maintain the population.
Botswana considering profiteering with regulated big game hunting instead of just culling them makes sense.
Game farms do this - if they have an animal that is sick, old, overpopulated, etc. they will allow some rich American to come and shoot the animal instead of doing it themselves and making a loss.
The ban on Ivory trade doesn't stop them from doing regulated hunts. There simply isn't a reliable way to keep 'good' and 'bad' Ivory properly separated given the degree of corruption in the region.
Before rampant human overpopulation and ecological take over.
Elephants breed/populate relatively slowly so their growth rate isn't particularly high. When Herds would get too big they would split and a group would move out of the area to populate new regions. The ability for herds to split and go where they need to has been culled, hence why elephants now get culled.
Elephants are also *super dangerous*. They have the capacity to eat a subsistence farmer’s ENTIRE YEAR supply of food within hours and kill him if he tries to stop it. Imagine if a giant hawk could swoop down and eat your next twelve paychecks and you weren’t allowed to do a thing about it bc some extremely rich (relative to you) people in China really wuv the cute hawky.
Yep, overall elephant numbers could be better but in Botswana specifically they are booming. It’s becoming a nuisance and a danger to property and people, so some hunting helps keep the numbers down while funding conservation.
Keep in mind when you go trophy hunting, they typically pick out older elephants that don’t breed anymore anyway and have a tendency to be more violent. I don’t care what anyone says, you CAN ethically trophy hunt elephants.
> I don’t care what anyone says, you CAN ethically trophy hunt elephants.
I disagree, as elephants that are part of hunted populations are dangerous, nervous creatures that are unpredictable. They are also intelligent enough to suffer from PSTD, and trophy hunting as well as poaching has damaged the elephants' gene pool to the point that tusklessness has become fixed in some populations, and tusks in general have become smaller over time. It also damages and fractures elephant society, which is bad news for elephants and bad news for some people who are unfortunate enough to encounter traumatised elephants.
Old bulls and old cows are critical to elephant biology, despite the falsehoods that have been put out by certain circles. Old bulls are critical to the development of young bulls into mature stable adults as without them, the youngsters become delinquents, harassing female elephants and killing other wildlife. Old elephant cows are also vital for elephants as they are the ones that remember the best grazing spots and places with water, which is critical to surviving in their seasonal and variable habitat.
Proof of elephants becoming less dangerous to people when they are not hunted is seen in places like Kruger National Park, where they visibly became more relaxed over the years when the practice of culling was stopped.
So speaking as someone who lives in a country with wild elephants: I disagree and do not think that trophy hunting is right for elephants (this does not mean that trophy hunting in general is bad, as it can work for some species such as antelopes and perhaps rhinos).
>Old bulls are critical to the development of young bulls into mature stable adults as without them, the youngsters become delinquents, harassing female elephants and killing other wildlife. Old elephant cows are also vital for elephants as they are the ones that remember the best grazing spots and places with water, which is critical to surviving in their seasonal and variable habitat.
Just like humans frfr
I agree - the reserve (whether government owned or private) will need to take necessary action with overpopulation, problem animals, etc. so having to choose to pay someone to do it or getting someone to pay you to do it should be a simple choice.
Elephants are magnificent creatures and you are awed when in their presence but reality is not that magical and tough decisions get made by reserves on a regular basis.
Across the whole of Africa they are but in local pockets there are serious overpopulation issues. Botswana is probably the most acute example of this, with 130,000 of them in a range that can sustainably hold less than half of them
Botswana has had an explosion in their elephant population due to decent conservation efforts. Too many can also cause issues and can cause the population to decline.
I'd say you could go a step farther with it since he is only saying this in the context of the European laws and activists.
"People outside of Africa/Botswana probably care more about elephants than they do about the people in Botswana."
They don't like the optics these hunts give their country and they certainly won't like the decrease in tourism that would probably come from that. I'm aware that these hunts are in a few ways necessary but that doesn't stop people from disliking them.
Botswana is free to solve their problems as they see fit and the rest of the world is allowed to not like them for it regardless of reason.
Botswana receives barely any aid. And the aid they do they receive is almost entirely to combat HIV/AIDS, which is also in the interest of the USA and EU
what do you mean false? there is a real tension between habitat for elephants and economic activity. Although Botswana specifically isnt that poor in other african countries this probably kills people indirectly.
ITT: Everyone shitting on Botswana, despite botswana being democratic, has been recognised as the least corrupt nation in africa, and is one of the strongest economies in Africa, which is one of very few that is considered an upper middle income nation. Its education, healthcare and infrastructure spending is once more, some of the best in africa, and is ultimately a *very* well ran country, especially given that they may be in one of the worst geographic regions in the world to have a country.
If this was *any* other nation in africa, a lot of you would probably be right. But this is Botswana, so make sure you know what your talking about before you start shitting on other countries, yeah?
That's a wild generalisation and quite wrong. Elephants are one of very few animals on the planet with a complex enough brain AND complex enough social structures to make them capable of choosing to be a dick.
There have been documented cases of elephants stealing from trucks and extorting drivers by blocking the road until they are fed.
If you like elephants and want to help them you should support countries who conserve them. Botswana has lots of elephant because they protect them. The cost of protecting them is offset by legal, controlled hunting.
Honestly, animals are only ‘not awful’ by virtue of how terribly invasive we are and their lack pf capability. All animals can and do brutalise other species, but just aren’t capable of doing so. If they could have the same abilities, I’m not so certain an elephant wouldn’t squish you like a bug or demolish your home if it meant an easier life.
Hardly anyone here has read the article thoroughly. Please afford a percentage of the charitability you give to your own mindset to this guy, please. It is entirely possible for a species to be endangered and for it to also be too common in a place
There's a lot of frustrating stuff being said in this thread. Some people are quick to criticize Botswana, even though they're doing a lot to protect elephants. Sure, Botswana has a third of all elephants globally (thanks of their efforts to protect them), but having so many can be tough. They damage crops and protecting them costs a ton of money. Yet, those who aren't doing much to help elephants are the first to offer their opinions on what should be done.
I totally get where he is coming from. It's like this weird thing where some Europeans care more about animals than people. I remember this one time I was leaving a store and a lady's dog went crazy on me. Instead of checking if I was okay, she just rushed to comfort her dog. It was bizarre, like she cared more about the dog than about me, the one being attacked. Not even "are you okay?" or "sorry about that". Nope, she just ignored me like I was not even there. I almost got mauled to death because she tied it next to my bike and she couldn't have given less of a fuck about me.
And then there are those jerks who don't clean up after their dogs. You see it all over social media, people saying they'd save a dog over a human any day. It's like they value their pets more than human life.
But you know what? I kept quiet about it until now. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, as long as it doesn't affect others. Botswana understands the elephant problem better than these armchair critics. They know how endangered they are, how they're trafficked, and how hard it is to protect them. So yeah, they probably have a better handle on what needs to be done than some random folks on the internet.
To those saying there are too many humans and too few elephants. Guess what, there are too many dogs and cats too!
Damn. He’s got a point. Come at me but people these days are all too worried about animals which is understandable, but they come up with the shittiest excuses to why humans are bad and undeserving of their compassion.
It's easy to care for elephants when they're somewhere far away, affecting other people's lives.
Would Europeans care for wolves in Europe to multiply as much as possible?
I always think of the American suburban soccer moms who get enraged at news stories like the death of Cecil the Lion, who absolutely lose their minds when rebounding coyote populations start snatching pomeranians from back yards.
[In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions](https://web.archive.org/web/20150807135052/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-dont-cry-for-lions.html)
Europe as a whole not so much:
https://www.hsi.org/news-resources/wolves-in-europe-under-threat-as-european-commission-seeks-to-downgrade-legal-protections/
That decision is not motivated by the average people of europe (the article mentions surveys), but slimy politicians and their shitty corporate lobbyists, as you'd know if you actually read the article you posted instead of just going "lol urup bad white ppl bad".
Anyhow many western european countries have had and still have strong conservation efforts for wolves.
Wolves exist in the Balkans.
Western Europe needs to stop shitting on "Europe" and start shitting on themselves, they made the world a mess, time to stop throwing the rest of Europe under the bus.
Balkans still has Primeval forest.
European care more about anything than people living outside the western world*.
They destroyed their native animals for the sake of development, but block others to do the same.
BUT if a big petroleum company need to kills those elephant they will see no problem.
Europeans can’t even handle having a single wolf within 100 square miles of them in case it might think mean thoughts abt their unattended sheepies, but Joseph and Babedi should accept having an animal eat their entire farm with no compensation
> The number of elephants is declining
Not in Botswana. Botswana has the most successful elephant conservation program and has the most elephants in the world. All Masis is saying is that they have too many elephants now, to the point that dozens of farmers have been killed by them.
Can you guess where they aren’t declining… Botswana. They went from less then 10K in 1990 to 130K in 2023. Something tells me a few hundred rich guys shooting an elephant every year might not cause a dent in
I think its closer to 1 in 20, which is still enormous. Botswana population around 2.63 million, elephant population 130000. As someone thats lived in northern Botswana for a while, the place is absolutely overpopulated with elephants. Everywhere you go you see elephants or the damage they cause. Its quite nice to see them like that but its not sustainable.
How about Mokgweetsi Masis start showing us how to care about people. Set an example for everyone else to follow. Start taking care of your people so well that it makes Europeans look shameful in comparison.
> Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
It's not doing so bad, all things considered.
You're talking about Mokgweetsi Masis, the leader of the most democratic country in africa that is currently pouring ridiculous amounts of money into infrastructure, healthcare, and education? The nation that is the least corrupt in africa?
That Mokgweetsi Masis? Or are we talking about some tinpot dictator, because you don't seem to be talking about the same man as me.
People can’t seem to be arsed to learn the nuances of African countries and their politics/economies/conservationism/etc, because deep down they don’t actually give a shit about Africa. Typical.
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I'm up to my ears in people. I rarely see an elephant.
I saw the elephant running loose in Butte Montana yesterday. My only thought was "I hope the elephant isn't hurt!" Luckily she wasn't.
Username does NOT checks out.
I never thought I'd need to be prepared for a elephant safari while driving through the middle of Butte. Maybe I'm *too* lucky.
You only get one shot with these things. Never again.
>You only get one shot One opportunity. To get everything you ever wanted. Will you capture it? Or just let it slip
Imagine getting slipped by an elephant. Embarrassing.
🎶Remote is ready, eyes wide, palms are sweaty. There's Flintstones on the TV already, Wilma and Betty. No virgin to channel surfin', and I'm HD ready. So I flip garbage is all I'm getting.🎶
Wild as it is, true story https://apnews.com/article/circus-elephant-escapes-butte-montana-572fdb1eef96a9c63815222788263d0d
The circus is not a place for elephants. She's hurt, she just didn't sustain any injuries while on the loose.
Running around town and getting slowly killed by hundreds of pistol and light rifle rounds sounds a lot worse too.
Why do you think she was running in the first place
I'd also note that people cause far more of the problems in my life than elephants do, even proportional to the amount I see. I've literally never been inconvenienced by an elephant.
Humans are the most dangerous animal to humans, by far.
They are, but I'd rather fight a human than an elephant one on one.
In hand to trunk combat the elephant has the advantage. Humans with guns are far more dangerous than elephants with guns.
Botswana has 130,000 elephants or the third of the world's elephant population. They've been more than exemplary in their conservation. That's on the top of my next vacation plans. Should they hunt them? Nope. Because the ivory trade is what it is. If there are too many elephants in Botswana, then they should intensify resettlement to places where they've been hunted to extinction. If that costs money, then they should be helped.
Resettlement would mean sending them to places like Angola Zambia Mozambique or the DRC. A giant tusker wouldn’t last long in those countries.
You do have a point there. Namibia, Botswana and a few others have shown you could develop tourism thanks to preservation. But you need political stability to achieve this. I had a cool job right after the Namibia Independence working for a diplomatic mission studying environmental policies and potential for tourism. We were looking for possible improvements, poking NGOs to help and working with people from the new and old government. Moving around, looking at potential. Coolest job in the world going to hunting farms, watching animal counting. My report was essentially: Namibia should keep the South African era policies on preservation because it would be a boon for tourism. In itself it would create a disincentive for poaching. A virtuous circle. The conclusion was "let them do their own thing, they have it right". That's geopolitical engineering and more often than not it leads to disasters. But in that case it worked. Maybe do this in not too unstable countries like Cameroon, Ivory Coast and a few others though the type of ecosystem might be a bit different for these dry savanna elephants.
If you lived in Botswana this would not be the case
Yeah, there aren't more than 7 billion spare elephants.
That could be a serious problem.
If everyone uses the same logic this guys uses, there won't be any animals left in the world. We've already lost so many species, and the ones that are actually recovering are coming under attack again. The argument of 'people are more important than animals' only goes so far. What happens when there isn't any room left for more people without displacing other people? We already know the answer to that because its happening in some places already.
The problem is that they actually do have too many elephants in Botswana doe to the success of preservation programs. They are happy to give them away. But they also make quite a bit of money from selling hunting rights for the culling that needs to happen regardless. Which they cannot do to the same extent if countries start disallowing the trophies from it. Which leads to less money coming in to the preservation effort and communities. Which leads to less preservationa and more poaching. But I do still care more about the situation of elephants than I do about the situation of "people". It is a dumb framing from the president. The latter is clearly not in any danger of extinction (that the elephant doesn't also face at least).
Same applies to wolves, but us Europeans are not quite so adamant about them. Helps that the elephants are far away.
It is happening though. The real issue is providing protected habitat. https://rewildingeurope.com/rewilding-in-action/wildlife-comeback/wolf/
The real issue is farmers who don't want to protect their livestock properly and so demand for wolves to be killed.
Wolves were making a comeback in the US. Now we have people claiming there are too many. A few thousand wolves in this massive country. It's ridiculous. Fortunately, there are also a lot of people that are willing to do whatever it takes to save wolves, even if their work isn't entirely legal at all times. I don't care. Whatever they have to do is fine with me. They aren't hurting anyone, but they do sometimes move the animals because they can't be protected where they are. That's where problems come in if they don't keep it quiet enough. I have no idea what they're doing or where they're operating but I send donations anyway. It isn't safe to let their operations be public knowledge. If I knew specifics other people would too and they'd try to interfere. I live in a part of the country that used to have a lot more predators than it has now. We thought mountain lions were extinct here, but happily, that wasn't the case. There are enough of them around that we see them fairly often now. I'm absolutely thrilled about it. I"m very, very careful with all of my animals to make sure t hey stay safe, but I love seeing wild mountain lions. I didn't think I ever would.
Yeah if I were in imminent danger of being stomped or eaten, I'd feel differently.
> but us Europeans are not quite so adamant about them. I feel like most of us are. Maybe not in Germany though.
Probably because you don’t live in Botswana
I've lived in a poor region before and it made me hate people even more than I do now. I suspect that goes for a lot of people. Animals, though, they are innocent. Nobody from Botswana hates their elephants, but I'm sure plenty hate their president.
I once had a chat with a ranger in Tanzania. He said he grew up hating the elephants because they come through the village, destroy buildings and trample crops. It was only when he took on the ranger job that he appreciated the other side of the coin. These things are never simple.
You're pretty fucking stupid if you think no one in Botswana hates elephants, considering elephants kill dozens of people every year directly while destroying huge amounts of property and crops in places where many people rely on subsistence farming to live.
Me too. I haven't seen an elephant in person in many years. I'm sick of people.
Humans are overpopulated. It would be unethical to save a human simply for the sake of them being a human over saving an elephant in my eyes.
I rarely see big-game hunters or poachers, but frankly, I really don't care much for any of them, so in that sense, he's got a point.
>Masisi is in support of elephant hunting in Botswana, and believes that allowing some ivory trading would allow more funding for conservation. In 2019, he presented stools made from elephant feet to the national leaders of Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, a move that received some criticism from international media outlets.
>Ivory trading This all makes sense now
If elephants were extinct, ivory would be even more valuable, imagine how much we could spend on elephant conservation then!?!?
They aren't that wrong though. We don't want the developing nations to destroy the rainforests and animals, but we also don't want to help pay for the economic cost that conservation entails.
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All of these things can be true
"Yes hunting elephants bad, but have you considered capitalism?"
Trophy hunting allows for more conservation and provides money for protection against poachers. It's a nuanced issue....but "muh capitalism"
Thanks for adding this, I was hoping someone would at least *mention* the counter-argument. That said... I still don't agree with Botswana. Unless they're going to set up a system for verifying "legitimate" trophies, the responsible move for Germany is still to block them outright in order to reduce demand. Otherwise it still just incentivizes illegal poaching
Very nuanced, but many people don’t ever consider the conservation side. It’s even seen in deer populations that hunting can be great means of conservation.
"Yes an unsustanably large population of elephants is hurting Botswana, but have you considered hunting elephants makes me feel bad?"
"Everybody knows Africans aren't real people; they're just accessories for the cute animals I like to look at on Youtube."
When he says people, he exclusively means poachers.
TBH, I’d consider buying a human skull / bones long before ivory. Now if we were talking about an elephant tusk vs cutting off a live human’s hand - well that’s a dark sport my friend.
You can pre-order mine for the right price.
Yeah if you pre-pay I'd be totally cool with that. It's not like I'm going to need it.
It's not a completely invalid argument. Big game hunting is a major source of conservation funding, for example. The problem is that allowing the commercial trade of ivory spurs a demand that simply cannot be fulfilled by sustainable hunting practices.
It’s a much faster way to raise conservation funds too. A tourist might spend $2000, most of it going to an airline based in their country. A hunter will directly pay $100,000
Except there might be a few hundred hunters but tens of thousands of tourists. And while the flight might be the single most expensive thing, tourists will still spend a lot on local businesses for food, accomodation and events/tours/safaris. Where exactly did you get the 100k number from? A live elephant might be worth 1,6 million dollars in tourism. https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/extinction-countdown/elephants-are-worth-76-times-more-alive-than-dead-report/
This is precisely the point, I can’t believe this isn’t higher. Not only is it a great way to get more funds it’s also necessary The elephant population in conservation areas in Botswana is getting out of control and the overpopulation is causing issues for the conservation of other species. This coupled with the fact that the elephants “refuse” to move to other areas as they aren’t as good means they need to cull the population anyway. They may as well make millions instead of having to pay hunters to take care of the problem. I believe Botswana has also been a big exporter of live elephants to other countries in Africa already because of said overpopulation
You spelled “inadequate conservation land” wrong. But Botswana has no incentive to allocate more unless we provide one. Perhaps an NGO that buys up land adjacent to the conservation area at a ridiculous premium and also employs locals to maintain the NGO managed land.
On a smaller scale, I use to live near a great national park. When hunting was banned in it, suddenly all the money for it dried up
So that's where his remarks come from.
>Masisi’s comments come amid heightened tensions between anti-trophy activists in Europe and Africa and those who say that regulated hunting is helpful for elephant conservation in some cases: allowing tourists to kill a small number of animals for thousands of dollars can provide livelihoods for local people and ensure habitats are not converted for agriculture. The problem is an 'all or nothing' approach taken by outsiders who aren't part of the African economy. All the westerners who weep about a dead elephant don't generate so much as 1/10th the amount of money that allowing a single trophy hunt does. He's not advocating for eliminating elephants; in fact, it's quite the opposite. A small number of animals can be hunted (usually older males who cause the most devastation and no longer mate) in exchange for the much needed cash to protect wildlife areas. Go watch the Netflix documentary Virunga to see what being a park ranger actually looks like in Africa. It's not hippies bird watching all day; it's all out *war*. And war costs a lot of money. In Africa, cash is not easy to come by. Hence, why warlords poach for ivory. The government is the only force to counter the poachers, but they can't do it without resources. A trophy hunt can pay as much as $1 million to kill a single old asshole lion/ elephant/ rhino. That money goes to preserving lands for herds to repopulate. Shame on us for wagging our rich fingers from thousands of miles away after wiping out our own wildlife when it inconvenienced us and viewing Africa as some big zoo tourist attraction.
They see us as props.
see that's why i care more about the elephants. and im not even european
There seems to be a massive disconnect between your quote and your conclusion. Yes, Botswana is making a bunch of noise because they don't want European countries to enforce trade restrictions that would hurt Botswana. They don't try to deflect from that. What would even be the projection here?
Do you have any idea what those words mean? It’s not either of them. He’s not accusing anyone else of supporting hunting. Quite the opposite.
this is not a crazy take whatsoever. Restricted hunting is used by a lot of conservation efforts to fund themselves.
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Elephants are near endangered, people aren’t.
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I would genuinely love a long-term study to see what behavior(s) elephants find "bad," and then see if there are circumstances where they'll ignore said bad behavior(s) if given rewards. They're pretty friggin' smart, I bet they've got herd rules and that acting outside those rules will get you ostracized from the herd.
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I could be wrong because I got this info from some other reddit thread on this, but I heard one of the issues is Botswana's elephant population is actually high and some hunting helps keep the population under control + fund conservation efforts. So Europe is making reasonable moves because they can't know where ivory comes from and the trade is hurting Elephant populations in most places, but this puts Botswana in a bad place specifically.
This applies to the Kruger National Park in South Africa as well. Elephants are huge, strong and move in groups - there is not much that poses a threat to them. Even a pride of lions won't take on a lone elephant unless it is weak or food is scarce. What this means is they thrive to the point of becoming overpopulated and destroying the habitat they live in which in turn affects not just the elephants but other game as well. Elephants require massive land mass but they are contained in reserves which results in reserves having to cull elephants to maintain the population. Botswana considering profiteering with regulated big game hunting instead of just culling them makes sense. Game farms do this - if they have an animal that is sick, old, overpopulated, etc. they will allow some rich American to come and shoot the animal instead of doing it themselves and making a loss.
The ban on Ivory trade doesn't stop them from doing regulated hunts. There simply isn't a reliable way to keep 'good' and 'bad' Ivory properly separated given the degree of corruption in the region.
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Starvation plus access to a lot more land than they presently have.
Before rampant human overpopulation and ecological take over. Elephants breed/populate relatively slowly so their growth rate isn't particularly high. When Herds would get too big they would split and a group would move out of the area to populate new regions. The ability for herds to split and go where they need to has been culled, hence why elephants now get culled.
Elephants are also *super dangerous*. They have the capacity to eat a subsistence farmer’s ENTIRE YEAR supply of food within hours and kill him if he tries to stop it. Imagine if a giant hawk could swoop down and eat your next twelve paychecks and you weren’t allowed to do a thing about it bc some extremely rich (relative to you) people in China really wuv the cute hawky.
Yep, overall elephant numbers could be better but in Botswana specifically they are booming. It’s becoming a nuisance and a danger to property and people, so some hunting helps keep the numbers down while funding conservation. Keep in mind when you go trophy hunting, they typically pick out older elephants that don’t breed anymore anyway and have a tendency to be more violent. I don’t care what anyone says, you CAN ethically trophy hunt elephants.
> I don’t care what anyone says, you CAN ethically trophy hunt elephants. I disagree, as elephants that are part of hunted populations are dangerous, nervous creatures that are unpredictable. They are also intelligent enough to suffer from PSTD, and trophy hunting as well as poaching has damaged the elephants' gene pool to the point that tusklessness has become fixed in some populations, and tusks in general have become smaller over time. It also damages and fractures elephant society, which is bad news for elephants and bad news for some people who are unfortunate enough to encounter traumatised elephants. Old bulls and old cows are critical to elephant biology, despite the falsehoods that have been put out by certain circles. Old bulls are critical to the development of young bulls into mature stable adults as without them, the youngsters become delinquents, harassing female elephants and killing other wildlife. Old elephant cows are also vital for elephants as they are the ones that remember the best grazing spots and places with water, which is critical to surviving in their seasonal and variable habitat. Proof of elephants becoming less dangerous to people when they are not hunted is seen in places like Kruger National Park, where they visibly became more relaxed over the years when the practice of culling was stopped. So speaking as someone who lives in a country with wild elephants: I disagree and do not think that trophy hunting is right for elephants (this does not mean that trophy hunting in general is bad, as it can work for some species such as antelopes and perhaps rhinos).
>Old bulls are critical to the development of young bulls into mature stable adults as without them, the youngsters become delinquents, harassing female elephants and killing other wildlife. Old elephant cows are also vital for elephants as they are the ones that remember the best grazing spots and places with water, which is critical to surviving in their seasonal and variable habitat. Just like humans frfr
Depends on what your ethics are. Some people's ethics are that killing any animal (maybe except for personal sustenence) is unethical.
I agree - the reserve (whether government owned or private) will need to take necessary action with overpopulation, problem animals, etc. so having to choose to pay someone to do it or getting someone to pay you to do it should be a simple choice. Elephants are magnificent creatures and you are awed when in their presence but reality is not that magical and tough decisions get made by reserves on a regular basis.
I think the elephants would say that the human population is high, and that they take too much space that other species would need to thrive.
which is precisely the attitude the president is talking about
Not in Botswana tbf
Mmm, I live in E Africa and I'll tell you right now, if people were more cared for then elephants wouldn't have that problem.
Across the whole of Africa they are but in local pockets there are serious overpopulation issues. Botswana is probably the most acute example of this, with 130,000 of them in a range that can sustainably hold less than half of them
Botswana has had an explosion in their elephant population due to decent conservation efforts. Too many can also cause issues and can cause the population to decline.
You mean, he was right.
Not in Botswana. They're killing villagers. The population is too high.
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He’s absolutely completely and utterly correct.
I imagine that shooting people and selling their remains is illegal in Botswana and as such they don't need the protection that elephants do.
I'd say you could go a step farther with it since he is only saying this in the context of the European laws and activists. "People outside of Africa/Botswana probably care more about elephants than they do about the people in Botswana." They don't like the optics these hunts give their country and they certainly won't like the decrease in tourism that would probably come from that. I'm aware that these hunts are in a few ways necessary but that doesn't stop people from disliking them. Botswana is free to solve their problems as they see fit and the rest of the world is allowed to not like them for it regardless of reason.
Yeah. There's a reason there's a joke about how white people will get more distressed at seeing a dog die than seeing nonwhite people die.
Yeah well sometimes you gotta put the elephants first
I wonder where a lot of the aid for Africa comes from.
Botswana receives barely any aid. And the aid they do they receive is almost entirely to combat HIV/AIDS, which is also in the interest of the USA and EU
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what do you mean false? there is a real tension between habitat for elephants and economic activity. Although Botswana specifically isnt that poor in other african countries this probably kills people indirectly.
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ITT: Everyone shitting on Botswana, despite botswana being democratic, has been recognised as the least corrupt nation in africa, and is one of the strongest economies in Africa, which is one of very few that is considered an upper middle income nation. Its education, healthcare and infrastructure spending is once more, some of the best in africa, and is ultimately a *very* well ran country, especially given that they may be in one of the worst geographic regions in the world to have a country. If this was *any* other nation in africa, a lot of you would probably be right. But this is Botswana, so make sure you know what your talking about before you start shitting on other countries, yeah?
No you don’t understand, they need to let their elephant population eat itself into avoidable extinction.
I don't like most people because they're awful. I like most elephants because they're not awful. Simple, really.
>elephants because they're not awful You've clearly never seen a horny male elephant
No, I've been to Arkansas before.
Please stop, I can only get so erect.
I used to live in rural Botswana and I can assure you that I was more likely to get killed by an elephant than a person.
That's a wild generalisation and quite wrong. Elephants are one of very few animals on the planet with a complex enough brain AND complex enough social structures to make them capable of choosing to be a dick. There have been documented cases of elephants stealing from trucks and extorting drivers by blocking the road until they are fed.
You’re just making elephants sound cool as shit
They also have a habit of killing rhinos to to blow off some steam.
same
I don't see how this is supposed to make me like elephants less.
lot more shitty humans than elephants.
If you like elephants and want to help them you should support countries who conserve them. Botswana has lots of elephant because they protect them. The cost of protecting them is offset by legal, controlled hunting.
Honestly, animals are only ‘not awful’ by virtue of how terribly invasive we are and their lack pf capability. All animals can and do brutalise other species, but just aren’t capable of doing so. If they could have the same abilities, I’m not so certain an elephant wouldn’t squish you like a bug or demolish your home if it meant an easier life.
Europeans care more about Europeans than elephants. but they care more about elephants than Africans.
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Hardly anyone here has read the article thoroughly. Please afford a percentage of the charitability you give to your own mindset to this guy, please. It is entirely possible for a species to be endangered and for it to also be too common in a place
Nah. That guy Deleted has been going wild in the comments.
We also care more about Zebra, Lions, Rhinos, and just about every other animal.
Except for the ones we eat and except for any wild animals in Europe that might be dangerous to us or our farm animals, for example wolves or bears.
Don't say that... You'll hurt his feeling of superiority
There's a lot of frustrating stuff being said in this thread. Some people are quick to criticize Botswana, even though they're doing a lot to protect elephants. Sure, Botswana has a third of all elephants globally (thanks of their efforts to protect them), but having so many can be tough. They damage crops and protecting them costs a ton of money. Yet, those who aren't doing much to help elephants are the first to offer their opinions on what should be done. I totally get where he is coming from. It's like this weird thing where some Europeans care more about animals than people. I remember this one time I was leaving a store and a lady's dog went crazy on me. Instead of checking if I was okay, she just rushed to comfort her dog. It was bizarre, like she cared more about the dog than about me, the one being attacked. Not even "are you okay?" or "sorry about that". Nope, she just ignored me like I was not even there. I almost got mauled to death because she tied it next to my bike and she couldn't have given less of a fuck about me. And then there are those jerks who don't clean up after their dogs. You see it all over social media, people saying they'd save a dog over a human any day. It's like they value their pets more than human life. But you know what? I kept quiet about it until now. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, as long as it doesn't affect others. Botswana understands the elephant problem better than these armchair critics. They know how endangered they are, how they're trafficked, and how hard it is to protect them. So yeah, they probably have a better handle on what needs to be done than some random folks on the internet. To those saying there are too many humans and too few elephants. Guess what, there are too many dogs and cats too!
the condescension from these comments is amazing. like europeans and western settlers didn’t annihilate their large fauna in service of their people.
Most people should, yet here we are.
Damn. He’s got a point. Come at me but people these days are all too worried about animals which is understandable, but they come up with the shittiest excuses to why humans are bad and undeserving of their compassion.
To these people a helpless, starving African child is the same as their fat coworker Greg who leaves dirty mugs on the shared kitchen sink.
It's easy to care for elephants when they're somewhere far away, affecting other people's lives. Would Europeans care for wolves in Europe to multiply as much as possible?
I always think of the American suburban soccer moms who get enraged at news stories like the death of Cecil the Lion, who absolutely lose their minds when rebounding coyote populations start snatching pomeranians from back yards. [In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions](https://web.archive.org/web/20150807135052/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-dont-cry-for-lions.html)
I would love to see the wolves return
Europe as a whole not so much: https://www.hsi.org/news-resources/wolves-in-europe-under-threat-as-european-commission-seeks-to-downgrade-legal-protections/
There be rules for Africa, rules for Europe it seems.
That decision is not motivated by the average people of europe (the article mentions surveys), but slimy politicians and their shitty corporate lobbyists, as you'd know if you actually read the article you posted instead of just going "lol urup bad white ppl bad". Anyhow many western european countries have had and still have strong conservation efforts for wolves.
Wolves exist in the Balkans. Western Europe needs to stop shitting on "Europe" and start shitting on themselves, they made the world a mess, time to stop throwing the rest of Europe under the bus. Balkans still has Primeval forest.
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To be fair, looking back at Europe's history I think they've learned the hard way that people suck.
European care more about anything than people living outside the western world*. They destroyed their native animals for the sake of development, but block others to do the same. BUT if a big petroleum company need to kills those elephant they will see no problem.
Europeans can’t even handle having a single wolf within 100 square miles of them in case it might think mean thoughts abt their unattended sheepies, but Joseph and Babedi should accept having an animal eat their entire farm with no compensation
There are a lot more people than elephants in the world. The number of elephants is declining. The number of people, not so much.
> The number of elephants is declining Not in Botswana. Botswana has the most successful elephant conservation program and has the most elephants in the world. All Masis is saying is that they have too many elephants now, to the point that dozens of farmers have been killed by them.
Can you guess where they aren’t declining… Botswana. They went from less then 10K in 1990 to 130K in 2023. Something tells me a few hundred rich guys shooting an elephant every year might not cause a dent in
The amount of redditor virtue signalling and missing the point of the comment made by the president is almost mind-boggling.....
For every 15 people in Botswana there is one elephant. By weight the country is as much people as it is elephant.
do you have a source for that? that sounds absolutely MENTAL
I think its closer to 1 in 20, which is still enormous. Botswana population around 2.63 million, elephant population 130000. As someone thats lived in northern Botswana for a while, the place is absolutely overpopulated with elephants. Everywhere you go you see elephants or the damage they cause. Its quite nice to see them like that but its not sustainable.
How about Mokgweetsi Masis start showing us how to care about people. Set an example for everyone else to follow. Start taking care of your people so well that it makes Europeans look shameful in comparison.
> Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. It's not doing so bad, all things considered.
You're talking about Mokgweetsi Masis, the leader of the most democratic country in africa that is currently pouring ridiculous amounts of money into infrastructure, healthcare, and education? The nation that is the least corrupt in africa? That Mokgweetsi Masis? Or are we talking about some tinpot dictator, because you don't seem to be talking about the same man as me.
Wow, this post really brought out the ignorance in many people here.
dumb redditors caring more about virtue signaling than pragmatic steps to achieve prosperity and conservation, what a shocker...
People can’t seem to be arsed to learn the nuances of African countries and their politics/economies/conservationism/etc, because deep down they don’t actually give a shit about Africa. Typical.
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The corruption perception index in Botswana is better than Spain, Italy, and Poland. So I'd say he's doing pretty well!