Home to an estimated 130,000 elephants, Botswana defends controlled hunting as a way to manage wildlife populations and support rural communities amid growing concerns over human-elephant conflict.
Botswana has authorised the killing of 23 elephants for its independence celebrations this week, prompting criticism from conservationists and former president Ian Khama despite the southern African country’s large elephant population.
Authorities said on Friday that the elephants would provide meat for needy rural communities. Hunting licences were issued across several districts, with each receiving a share of the overall quota.
Botswana is home to an estimated 130,000 elephants, more than any other country. However, African savanna elephants are classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The government has defended its annual hunting quotas as necessary to manage elephant numbers and limit conflicts between people and wildlife. Botswana lifted its ban on elephant hunting in 2019, largely in response to the animals’ growing population.
In recent years, the country has authorised the hunting of between 200 and more than 400 elephants annually, depending on the year.
The government also approved the killing of dozens of antelope this week as part of the initiative, which coincided with Botswana’s celebration of 60 years of independence from Britain on Wednesday.
The Botswana Elephant Protection Society condemned the elephant killings as reckless, warning that they could make herds more hostile towards nearby communities.
“When one elephant is shot, the rest become defensive,” the organisation said.
Elephants can cause extensive damage and pose serious dangers, with herds in several African countries destroying crops and infrastructure and killing or injuring people.
Human-wildlife conflict remains a major challenge across Africa. Other countries, including neighbouring South Africa, also establish annual quotas for elephant hunting.
Botswana attracts international tourists with its rich wildlife and operates a compensation policy for local people affected by human-wildlife conflict. Hundreds of such cases are recorded each year.
The country’s elephant population became the focus of international debate in 2024 when then-president Mokgweetsi Masisi and his government responded to criticism of trophy hunting from the United Kingdom and Germany by offering to send tens of thousands of elephants to those countries.
“It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion on our affairs in Botswana,” Masisi was quoted as saying by German newspaper Bild. He added that managing elephants was “no joke.”
Dimakatso Ntshebe, deputy director of the government’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks, defended this week’s hunting decision.
“Wildlife conservation must deliver meaningful benefits to the communities that live alongside wildlife and contribute to its protection,” he said on Friday.
Khama, who served as Botswana’s president from 2008 to 2018 and now holds a traditional governance role as a regional chief, said he opposed the decision.
He warned that it created an “expectation” that elephants would be killed for future national events.
