- Elephant Without Borders (EWB) recommends government to limit hunting to a maximum quota of 0.2% of the total population per year
- Argues that for the period 2021-2025, official quotas were significantly high
- Suggests limiting hunting to 0.2% annually would increase resilience of the population to environmental changes, other variables
- Posits that suggested quota would still allow hunting of 280 elephants per year
In their new scientific review of Botswana’s elephant hunting programme, Elephant Without Borders (EWB) has recommended that the government should limit hunting to a maximum quota of 0.2% of the total population per year of 280 elephants.
The report, authored by Scott Schlossberg and Michael Chase, suggests that hunting quotas have gradually risen over time in Botswana. It states that for 2021-2025, official quotas have been significantly higher than they were in most of 1996-2013, both as a percentage of the population and in absolute numbers.
“With quotas at 0.3%, the lack of resilience to poaching, drought, or other changes in mortality risks depletion of bulls and reduced trophy sizes on hunts.”
It suggests that limiting hunting to 0.2% annually would increase the resilience of the population to environmental changes. “Future levels of poaching, drought, and disease are unknown, so the precaution of making the hunting quota 0.2% will help to make the hunting programme future proof.”
According to the report, elephant management that includes hunting in Botswana should have three goals for the long term. First being to maintain an economically viable hunting industry by providing sufficient numbers of trophy-quality bulls for hunters. Second should be to maintain enough mature bulls in the population for them to fulfill their biological functions of mating, providing knowledge to younger bulls, and preventing inappropriate behaviour.
“The third goal follows directly from the first two: ensure that the hunt is resilient to both anticipated and unanticipated external factors such as drought, poaching, disease, human-elephant conflict, and movements of elephants”
“Our models show that meeting the third goal will be easiest if hunting quotas are kept in the 0.1-0.2% range. As quotas increase beyond 0.2%, the number of mature bulls in the population decreases to the point where the population is not resilient to environmental changes that reduce the numbers of bulls. This is a consistent finding of all of our modelling exercises”
EWB notes that one obvious criticism of their recommendation is that effective quotas, actual harvest numbers divided by the estimated population size, are already in the range of 0.1-0.2%. But it argues that the results from 1996-2013 show that as hunting quotas increase, the actual offtake increases as well. “…the correlation between the quota and the offtake for 1996 2013 is 0.97. So, there is reason to believe that actual harvests will soon increase to be nearer quotas, as the hunting industry recovers following the moratorium.”
The report stresses that a quota of 0.2% would still allow hunting 280 elephants per year, which is more elephants than have been harvested in most previous years of hunting and just 13% less than the maximum number hunted in any year.
EWB says setting the quota at this precautionary level should allow the hunt to avoid the worst effects of drought and poaching. “With hunting at a 0.2% rate, the number of mature bulls in the population should be large enough to act as a buffer against any unanticipated threats to the population. By contrast, hunting at 0.3% results in a much smaller buffer and greater risk that mature bulls will be overhunted.”
Meanwhile, to ensure that elephant hunting is sustainable, EWB has recommend increased monitoring for poaching as well as monitoring bull age structure in hunting blocks. It also recommends that regular, high-intensity surveys of northern Botswana continue every 4 years adding that such surveys should be expanded to other parts of the country with hunting.
That as it may EWB has advised DWNP that hunting within Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) should remain strictly limited to the dry season and not extended well into the wet season.
“Extending hunting into the wet season (October–December) coincides with the natural dispersal of elephants. During this period, bulls roam more widely in search of fresh forage and water, often moving into concessions and mixed-use areas where they become highly vulnerable to being targeted. This substantially increases the risk of shooting older elephants; individuals of immense ecological and genetic importance.” EWB concluded that their goal of the report is neither to oppose hunting nor to promote it but rather hopes to demonstrate how it might impact elephant populations. And also, to suggest practices for mitigating any harms to the population and Botswana’s wildlife-based economy.
