Botswana’s president has threatened to hand over up to 20,000 elephants to Germany, angered by Berlin’s criticism of pachyderm hunting and trophy exports, which he says his country is using to control the animals’ numbers, AFP reports.

Elephants in BotswanaPhoto: Dr P. Marazzi / Sciencephoto / Profimedia Images

Germans must “live with animals because they try to dictate to us,” said Botswanan President Mokgwitsi Masisi in comments to German daily Bild published on Tuesday, according to News.ro. “This is no joke,” he added of his proposal to relocate 20,000 pachyderms to the northern European country. “We would like to give this gift to Germany,” Masisi said, adding that he would “not take no for an answer.”

Botswana, a landlocked southern African country, is home to the world’s largest population of elephants, about 130,000, whose coexistence is often difficult, according to the president, who cited attacks on people, villages and crops.

Germany’s environment ministry, led by environmentalists, has criticized elephant hunting trophies used by wealthy Western clients.

At the beginning of this year, the ministry announced the possibility of strengthening restrictions on the import of these trophies due to problems with poaching.

“In the EU, we are in discussions to extend the import permit requirement (…) for other hunting trophies of protected animals,” a ministry spokeswoman told AFP on Tuesday. As Germany is one of the biggest importers of hunting trophies in the EU, it has a “special responsibility” in this regard, she added.

Regarding the “gift” expected by President Masisi, the German Environment Ministry responded that “Botswana has not yet approached” Berlin on the matter.

In 2019, Botswana lifted a blanket ban on hunting that had been in place five years earlier to halt the decline in elephant and other species. The removal of the ban outraged environmentalists. Commercial hunting is also an important source of local income. Since then, Botswana has set a quota of animals that can be hunted each year. Also last year, the country offered 8,000 elephants to Angola, and 500 animals to Mozambique in 2022.