{"id":64447,"date":"2025-03-01T18:39:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T18:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana"},"modified":"2025-03-30T14:51:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T14:51:40","slug":"shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana","title":{"rendered":"Shooting an Elephant in Botswana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. <\/strong><\/span><b>In April 2024, Botswana\u2019s then-president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, made headlines for his government\u2019s threat to send 30,000 elephants to Germany and the United Kingdom so that Europeans could try living alongside the creatures. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not a joke,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The bizarre proposal was a response to proposed legislation in the U.K. and Germany that would ban trophy hunting, making it illegal for their citizens to kill elephants and other wild animals abroad and bring their remains back home to display. Polls show that 85 percent of the German and British publics support trophy import bans. In 2019, when Botswana lifted its own wildlife hunting ban, which had been in place since 2014, there was vocal opposition from Western celebrities and activists, with some even calling for boycotts of the country. Trophy hunters make easy villains, and African elephants are easy to love. The world\u2019s largest land animals, they stick together in multi-generational matriarchal herds. They call each other by names, and when one dies, they linger over their bodies, seeming to mourn each other.<\/p>\n<p>But in Botswana, home to more elephants than any country in the world, the picture is more complicated. The herbivores, which can weigh up to 15,000 pounds, are wreaking havoc\u2014destroying centuries-old forests, stealing farmers\u2019 crops, and, according to local sources I spoke with, killing people in the most affected areas at a rate as deadly as car accidents in the United States. As celebrities and powerful NGOs campaign against trophy hunting, many locals see it as a lifeline.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Botswana<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Botswana. In April 2024, Botswana\u2019s then-president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, made headlines for his government\u2019s threat to send 30,000 elephants to Germany and the United Kingdom so that Europeans could try living alongside the creatures. \u201cThis is not a joke,\u201d he said. The bizarre proposal was a response to proposed legislation in the U.K. and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":64446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[234],"class_list":["post-64447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Shooting an Elephant in Botswana - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In April 2024, Botswana\u2019s then-president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, made headlines for his government\u2019s threat to send 30,00 ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shooting an Elephant in Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In April 2024, Botswana\u2019s then-president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, made headlines for his government\u2019s threat to send 30,00 ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-01T18:39:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-30T14:51:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2025\/03\/sm_1740842760.988667.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Shooting an Elephant in Botswana\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-01T18:39:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-30T14:51:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana\"},\"wordCount\":268,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2025\/03\/sm_1740842760.988667.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana\",\"name\":\"Shooting an Elephant in Botswana - 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