No more hunting in Botswana...

[Oak]

http://blog.africageographic.com/af...-halt-on-all-hunting-licences-in-the-country/

 

[belly-deep]

I'm curious as to how "hunting as fueled poaching"

It seems to me, the more hunters you have around, the less poachers can get away with what they're doing.

 

[kansasdad]

When Kenya shut down hunting in the 70's that is when the real poaching began. No longer having hunters and their professional guides afield, the bad guys could begin the near complete extermination of rhinos and severe reductions of the elephant herd size. I believe Kenya's first president and his immediate successor personally profited from poaching. Government issued weapons and large scale organized poaching (and a blind eye of law enforcement) had the opposite effect of the stated goal of preserving wildlife numbers for the tourist industry.

 

[Rat Fink]

Dig a little deeper. Private lands are not effected. There will still be hunting in Botswana but just not in the government concessions. The problem is Botswana was one of the last true large wilderness tracts in Africa. The main draw was hunters that did not want to hunt high fence properties like what much of Africa has become. A tragic loss for Botswana and Safari buffs.

 

[jeffpg]

Dig a little deeper. Private lands are not effected. There will still be hunting in Botswana but just not in the government concessions. The problem is Botswana was one of the last true large wilderness tracts in Africa. The main draw was hunters that did not want to hunt high fence properties like what much of Africa has become. A tragic loss for Botswana and Safari buffs.

+1
I hunted a 100,000 acre private ranch in August & go back again in May.

There's still some hunting off private, but with an anti hunting government, they're in trouble.
The worst thing will be the effect of shutting down elephant hunting. That will be catastrophic.

 

[Rat Fink]

+1
I hunted a 100,000 acre private ranch in August & go back again in May.

There's still some hunting off private, but with an anti hunting government, they're in trouble.
The worst thing will be the effect of shutting down elephant hunting. That will be catastrophic.

Elephants in Botswana are way over population goals. The price of Elephant hunts for tuskless and non trophy animals has been coming down because they can't get enough people over there to help contain the population. The silver lining in this is that there may be some cheap opportunities to hunt elephant in the future if their experiment fails.

 

[TOM IN TENNESSEE]

Botswana is a tradgedy waiting to happen ....and happen soon it will!
Eco tourist orgs have promised the anti-hunting Prez payments to the government to offset lost revenue from hunters to keep primarily ele hunting closed....they already "pay" Kenya millions annually to keep Kenya closed to all hunting....perhaps these idiots mean well but I have been on the ground in areas over populated with Eles....it ain't purty!!!
The really bad thing is head of Botswana photo safari industry told the Prez that the areas he was stopping hunting in are not suitable for photo safaris....the Prez's daddy was a "hunter" and took his young son with him and created an image of hunting----shoot an animal and it run off, no follow up and laff about it saying there's more and also stay drunk for much of trips he took the boy who would become Prez....the Prez's mind is now predjudiced against all hunters because his Dad was a slob hunter and a drunk!!! The Prez is a tea totaller but has yet to ban drinking....
When I was leaving Maun, I told the native helping with firearms check out that it was a shame I could never return because of what the Prez was doing....his response was"Oh no! He is a man of the people! He will listen to the people! You will come back next year!"......