Botswana wants to send 20,000 elephants to Germany
By Jacqueline Howard
The president of Botswana has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in a political dispute.
Earlier this year, Germany’s environment ministry suggested there should be stricter limits on importing hunting trophies.
Botswana’s president Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media this would only impoverish Botswanans.
He said elephant numbers had exploded as a result of conservation efforts, and hunting helped keep them in check.
Germans should “live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to”, Mr Masisi told German newspaper Bild.
The country is home to about a third of the world’s elephant population – more than 130,000.
Herds were causing damage to property, eating crops and trampling residents, he told Bild.
Botswana has previously given 8,000 elephants to countries such as Angola, and has offered hundreds more to Mozambique, as a means of bringing the population down.
