Elephant hunters cause horror in Botswana - "One of the largest in the country" dead
Created: 04/21/2022, 19:21
By: Kai Hartwig
This picture, which is said to show the two hunters and the killed elephant, was published on social media.
© Screenshot / Facebook/Game Animals of the Past and Present
The image of two hunters in front of a killed elephant in Botswana is stunned.
It was a very rare, special animal.
An ex-politician is sharply critical.
Gaborone – The African continent is home to numerous animal species that can only be admired in zoos and animal parks in this country.
Some of them are critically endangered or even threatened with extinction.
The population of elephants has also declined threateningly in recent decades.
It is all the more disturbing that in many African countries big game hunting is a lucrative source of income.
Tourists can also hunt wild animals such as lions, giraffes or elephants for a considerable sum.
In Botswana, another large animal has apparently fallen victim to immoral activities.
Huge-tusked elephant killed in Botswana hunt - trophy hunter raves
An African elephant was killed by two hunters, according to several media outlets.
The bull elephant killed is a so-called tusker.
The particularly large animals have powerful tusks that can weigh over 100 kg in total.
Experts estimate that there are only around 40 Tusker elephants left in Africa.
Now one of them apparently fell victim to a hunt.
According to an Instagram post on the hunting portal
Blood Origin
, trophy hunter Leon Kachelhoffer and his companion Mike Fell are credited with killing the capital elephant bull .
Kachelhoffer reposted this.
In a podcast on the portal, he raved about elephant hunting.
"To be able to hunt a bull like that is an absolute privilege," said Kachelhoffer.
On the other hand, he does not want to have expected negative reactions to the killing of the impressive animal.
"When you set your sights on a bull like that, you feel remorse, you feel sad and you think about the great life that elephant led," the hunter claimed.
He is concerned with more than a photo with the killed elephant.
Huge elephant shot dead while hunting – ex-Botswana president sharply criticizes
Botswana's ex-president Ian Khama, on the other hand, was stunned by the killing of the giant bull elephant.
"This was one of the largest, if not the largest, tusker in the country," he wrote on Facebook: "An elephant that tour operators were constantly trying to show tourists as an iconic attraction.
Now he's dead."
Khama banned trophy hunting in Botswana in 2014.
But his successor, Mokgweetsi Masisi, lifted the ban in 2019.
And so commercial big game hunting became legal again in Botswana.
Masisi's predecessor clearly criticized this decision in his statement: "How can his death benefit our shrinking tourism industry?
Incompetence and bad leadership nearly wiped out the rhino population, and now this,” Khama wrote.
(kh)
