In 1984, there were only 50,000 elephants left in the nation of Botswana.
The numbers were deemed to be dangerously low for the species, so European and American environmentalists jumped in, leading to a ban on trophy hunting and poaching.
Soon, however, the nation ran into elephant troubles. Here's what Dilys Roe, chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group, had to say:
"Elephants are intelligent creatures and so steered clear of the hunting areas as far as possible until hunting was banned," Roe said.
But once the ban was in place, she said, the elephants "not only re-inhabited those areas but also ventured out onto the adjacent farmland with huge damage to crops and livelihoods.
Even though elephants do not reproduce often (about every 4 years), after 4 decades, the population has nearly tripled to 130,000 animals, which have become a threat to its human population.
Botswana has now reversed its hunting ban as a result.
Both Britain and Germany bristled at the action, and have passed their own bans on their citizens hunting elephants or importing trophies.
But Botswana's president Mokgweetsi Masisi is having none of it.
I wish they would be as horrified when elephants maul and maraud people.
Adam Hart, professor of Science Communication at the University of Gloucestershire in the U.K. and co-author of the book "Trophy Hunting", says,
We are in a biodiversity crisis, and we certainly need better solutions. We have nothing that has been shown to work at the scale at which hunting tourism currently works. We have to follow the evidence. Botswana leads the way in terms of conservation success.
He says that if the Europeans are going to insist on not helping cull the massive elephant population they forced Botswana to breed, then they're going to have to take a few thousand of the animals off the African nation's hands.
The president says he will ship 10,000 elephants to London and 20,000 to Brussels.
He didn't elaborate on the logistics of shipping all those animals north, but he did say,
We won't take no for an answer.
Guess Europe should get ready for a whole different kind of migrant!!
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