Quote:

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“........ Should we rather kill people and leave elephants.......”
Right now (April 2020) there are no elephants where the killin’ needs to be done.
- 3DogMike

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Seems about right.

However re Botswana and El. The Chobe Nat park in the NW of Botswana can sustainably hold 40,000El. The current estimates of El population range from 60,000 to 160,000. Most seem to put the number between 80,000 and 140,00. Depends who you talk to.

Elephants destroy more habitat and cause more extinctions than any other animal except man. This mainly occurs where the El are over populated. What you don't see, except for one news broadcast, I saw, where they spoke with PH's/rangers from Botswana is the damage the El are doing to Chobe. They turn areas into desert. Very little survives in these areas.

As a PH explained to me. Lets assume there are 120,000 El in Chobe area. 50% are female = 60,000 (I am told the female population is way more than 50% of a herds number. Lets assume that only 30,000 are of breeding age. They drop a calf every 3 yers. That is 10,000. Lets say only 50% survive that is 5,000 new els added to the population every year. Hunters will not remove 5,000 els a year. 5,000 would need to be removed just to maintain the status quo. Add in poaching and you would still need heavy culling just to maintain the numbers. Remember these are conservative numbers that the PH was working with.

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