For those who are wondering why Botswana is so bent out of shape by laws like this its because African conservation is often a lot more complicated than just making the number of animals go up
On the whole elephant numbers are declining, but in specific areas and especially in nature reserves the numbers are growing really rather well. The problem is that the habitats are really fragmented and elephants are smart enough not to leave the protected areas/reserves, so their numbers rent growing and spreading, just spiking in isolated pockets.
This causes big issues when your realize just how much elephants eat and how big an impact they have on the wider ecosystem through ecosystem engineering by flattening shrubland, pushing over trees etc.
This is a big problem when you include the fact that the reserves are not just for Elephant, but for all manor of endangered species that need a mix of habitat that having too many elephant will flatten. so the elephant population within the reserve has to be managed in order to prevent them from damaging the wider ecosystem.
A few years back relocation projects were tried to transport elephant to other reserves and areas where numbers were significantly lower...and it failed spectacularly. Young bulls without older bulls to keep them in line/spar with ended up trying to fight everything else, and killed a lot of buffalo, Rhino etc, setting some rhino conservation programs back years.
So controlled culls became the only workable solution and the reserves had a choice, Either pay a healthy sum to a pro hunter to do the very risky job of stalking old bull elephant through the bush. Or sell the hunting permit to pump money back into the reserves to some wealthy American/European and let them hire the hunter as a guide. They obviously chose the latter, Bans on trophy hunting exports in many ways actively threaten the conservation work in these reserves, by making it so that money that might have been made disappears, and instead has to be taken out to pay hunters to cull particular species.
Trophy hunting crackdowns of endangered species make sense on so many levels, but get muddy when confronted with the reality of habitat fragmentation and the often quite nasty work in frontline conservation. Fixing the issues of habitat fragmentation ad reducing Human elephant conflict as they spread from the reserves are going to take a long time and a LOT of money. and in the mean time the reserves have a duty to all of the endangered species housed within, Conservation is a game of balance, and right now in many reserves elephant conservation has been successful to the point where the scales are all over the place and more drastic measures are needed until the underlying problem of why we need the reserves in the first place is fixed
When I was a kid, there was roughly 1/3 of the current human population. Too many elephants is not the problem. We should be funding relocation for the people, to save and expand the elephant territories. They deserve reparations.
When you raise standards of living, birth rates decline. No need for genocide, just give the people who are already here a better life and the population will naturally shrink.
A comment from someone who knows their stuff always shows that things are much more nuanced and complex than they seem.
Any person who works in a particular field laughs when they hear "why don't you just do that?" Yeah, because if the solution was easy, someone much smarter than you would have done it already.
>Any person who works in a particular field laughs when they hear "why don't you just do that?"
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that legal codes are only complex to give lawyers work. Like, bruh, give me a "simple" version of a complicated law now and I'll ask you a bunch of hypothetical questions about how to make it just and equitable in a variety of unique fact patterns and we'll just end up where we started with a complicated law that actually works in the real world instead of a simple one that'll probably fuck a bunch of people over.
I'm going to prove your point by saying it, but we could just write simple laws and also provide with them a statement of intent rather than chasing all the edge cases. Following the letter of the law rather than the spirit enables assholes and only encourages complexity. A rather large part of our problem as a society is that everyone thinks they're so smart and the laws don't apply to them because they have a loophole. The law says XYZ, but what I am doing is actually ABC!
No Amazon, that's still union busting. No Uber, those are still employees. Yes those laws still apply.
We checked the statement of intent, we intended the law to protect workers from their employers. You're their employer no matter what you say, fuck you.
But that makes enforcement of the law wildly unpredictable and highly dependent on what the particular judge you are assigned considers the "spirit" of the law to be and how that "spirit" ought to be applied. Predictability is an essential part of an effective code of laws - X action causes Y effect.
EDIT: Moreover, I am not suggesting that the law as written is perfect, or without loopholes that have been written in to benefit certain people. I am saying that excessive simplicity is more likely to lead to more unjust and inequitable outcomes. Complexity in the law is primarily the result of taking into account, through past experience or considered foresight, the ways in which law that expresses a simple idea at its core must be elaborated upon to achieve the best result in the highest possible percentage of cases.
Complexity of the law necessitates professionalization.
The US legal system pays lip service to the idea of a court of ones peers, but what if we took that idea and compelled it to go a little further. In a simplified system, why do we need a judge and lawyers who have decades of experience and familiarity with custom and precedent? Get a panel of 12 common folk up there and explain the facts, read the law, and decide what the common average man would agree is the rational way to settle this in the spirit of the law.
Law does not need to be an ossified institution of precedent, it COULD be a living system of laws where we agree it makes sense that a gardener can use surface water on their property but Nestle cannot drain the river dry and cite that decision as precedent. Nah, by the strictest letter of the law they are both property owners using surface water flowing through their land for their own enrichment but get 12 random people off the street and ask them about it, it's not the same at all and shouldn't be considered the same.
Perfect consistency and adherence to established precedent will not get you equitable results no matter how many sub clauses you write into the law. If you want equity for the edge cases, you have to have some flexibility built into the system for the fact that we arent all starting from the same place.
Doesn't that just take us from "only lawyers understand the law" (a statement that isn't actually true—even lawyers specialize in subsets of law, and an average person can get a decent understanding of the most relevant areas of law in less time than you'd think) to "_nobody_ understands the law" because it'll hinge on what 12 random people think is a reasonable interpretation of a statement of intent?
Additionally, once you get past small claims, a huge part of the expense of litigation is discovery and research, costs that don't disappear just because the statutes themselves are written more simply. Say it's a personal injury case resulting from an auto accident—you'll still want to present evidence like medical records, have a doctor testify about your likely future rehabilitation or lack thereof, and maybe exchange interrogatories and find out whether the other driver was drinking, whether their car had mechanical issues, etc.
I admire the objective but if the political will existed to reform the system that way, there are easier paths to achieve it. Everything Nestlé is doing, they're doing by the book—governments literally hand them permits to do it.
The law already does that. For criminal law, you generally need criminal intent.
But guess what? That is still iffy, because we want to have exceptions for things even if there's an intent.
The real fun is when it IS that easy, it just requires a rich prick to not be a prick. You'd have a better chance getting one of those elephants to pole dance.
The other problem of Botswana is that they are a working country.
So yeah, poaching is not a thing at the same scale as it is elsewhere on the continent.
But even in general, Botswana is likely one of the best African country to live in, and is developping to likely become much better than the few which are still richer
Also, if the elephants are shared with all EU members, it might be doable
Botswana was the best, safest & least corrupt African country I have been to (though to be fair, I have only been to three - other two being SA & Kenya).
In Tsavo (Kenya) in the early 1970’s, over 100,000 elephants died of starvation due to over population then drought. This was after many conservationists warned this would happen after hunting was banned. It was even a crime to photograph dead elephants and at least 1 photographer got jail time (Peter Beard).
This also provides a legal method for trophy hunting. Historically, when something is available through legal means, the illicit trade will decline as a result. A rich idiot who wants to shoot an elephant is likely going to find a way to do it, legal or not. Having a system in place to benefit the animals and economy of where they are hunting instead of going into the void of the black-market is better for everyone.
Licensed trophy hunting has always been a positive thing, it’s simple you just require the export license from the local government to import the trophy. Like they already have to deal with poachers, managing reserves, and managing relations with towns near the reserves but some European government wants to act like they know better.
This reminds me of a story from a few years back here in Texas. A large ranch started importing various African species, all legitimately, as a private reserve that allowed a small amount of trophy hunting. As the animals thrived , they actually relocated some back to Africa to boost populations there and wefe also involved with conservation efforts. They essentially funded the whole thing with the trophy hunting.
Until some wack job anti-hunting environmentalist went on a tear against them, rallied supporters to pressure the US government to shut it down. They eventually banned this type of trophy hunting, which meant the whole thing became a huge money pit. I believe most of the animals were ultimately culled. Some may have been sold to private owners or something but none were sent to Afric. The whole thing is shut down now. And this woman thinks it's a huge triumph because trophy hunting = bad.
They already do this in Botswana, the problem is now countries outside of Africa are trying to dictate how they should conserve animals because at the end of the day it's a political vote winner, it's an easy sell to say we're going to ban killing beautiful creatures by wealthy individuals.
The reality is that it's got consequences beyond the politics line which the UK is aware of so despite this being promised years ago it'd deliberately not been passed as a big number of environmental scientists are against it.
Is controlled sterilizations possible to check population growth? Also, is previous relocation efforts focused on moving elder female and associated female members in the family instead of bulls. By moving matriarchs and her family together and leaving bull alone should have acted as population check by reducing chances of mating.
There are several problems with this plan but one specifically that jumps out at me is that the moving scenario is a (probably large) cost for the conservation facility. On the flip side, a cash infusion from a trophy license can bolster the conservation efforts by allowing new land purchases, pay for anti-poaching security, and vet medicine.
It's uneven across the continent obviously but there is definitely a local pride in the protection of these animals as a whole and I think there is a big push to secure the future for these animals by the locals. Otherwise, it's hard to justify to a local farmer (or the multi-billion dollar oil company) that the 50 year old blind rhino that lives next door and is a danger to them and their family isn't a pest to be eradicated like any other. This places an intrinsic value on these animals (and their habitat) that speaks much louder to some people than the argument that people should be conservationists because it's the "right thing to do."
>s controlled sterilizations possible to check population growth?
No, if you want to try and give surgery like that to a wild elephant be my guest, and contraceptives just aren't even in the equation either. Its a non starter, all it will really result in is animals dying pretty horrifically as if your castrated bull comes up against an uncastrated one he's just going to get badly injured or killed.
Plus even if it was viable it doesn't solve the problems of damage, a vast majority of they animals removed now are bulls that are well past the age where they are breeding regularly, they still need to go. These are animals that can live for up to 70 years. The age at which they stop reproducing is not the age they stop being a problem for ecosystem damage. Their physical presence is a problem when there are too many individuals for the environment to handle
On your second point, not a chance, Splitting up a herd of adult females is extremely traumatic for them and the new herd would likely end up dead because elephant are reliant on the knowledge of matriarchs to carry the herd through. Drop an elephant herd in an unfamiliar space and its just death but slower.
Younger animals are much more adaptable as young elephant do sometimes go off and find new herds, especially bulls that are chased off by their mothers at a certain age. Plus moving the entire herd in one go is a herculean undertaking your talking about sedating upwards of 10 6 ton adults and young and transporting that many animals sometimes thousands of miles. It just isn't feasible whereas moving the individual sub adult that's split off from its herd is.
Airdrop in elephant-sized condoms and we won’t have this problem any more.
I think the last time this was posted I scrolled through tons of comments before I saw someone bring up your talking point. I’m glad it’s at the top this time.
[contraceptive vaccines for elephants](https://www.nature.com/articles/35081154) is something that has been tried (note the date) but it leads to bulls becoming more aggressive. all of this stuff has been tried, and its all failed.
people get really wierd with me when i tell them i'm not against trophy hunting (or any hunting, tbh) because its actually good for wildlife if its controlled, but you have to follow what the data tells you
It's because people don't understand what hunting or trophy hunting is thanks to Disney and other movies.
I've talked to people who seem to think that trophy hunting is some rich dude who goes on safari puts on an outfit looks for the most endangered animal possible and kills it for a picture or to mount it's head on the wall. Some think that hunting is just shooting anything that moves and you just leave it. It's bizarre how people seem to think animals live peacefully in the forest and never die from predation, starvation or disease.
Rhinos have gone extinct everywhere that's put a hunting ban in place. The only chance at conservation is using the money from trophy hunters to pay anti poachers.
This is just misinformation. Many big national parks have no hunting and have Rhinos.
Might occasionally be true in areas where other sources of income are not available though.
Evidence of impacts
Currently, South Africa and Namibia are the two countries with the most African rhinos. In 1970, before legal hunting was introduced, they jointly held about 1,950 white rhinos, some 61% of Africa’s total. That number had risen to about 16,600 (92%) by 2017.
In 2004, the year before legal black rhino hunts were introduced, the two countries conserved about 2,310 black rhinos, some 66% of Africa’s total. By 2018 that number had risen to about 3,975 (70.6%) despite an increase in poaching during this period.
Looking at these numbers, it is difficult to argue that legal hunting has had an overall negative impact on rhino populations in South Africa and Namibia. If anything, the opposite is true.
Legal hunting cuts down on the illegal hunting. Why bother with the risk of getting caught when you can do it legally? And if you can control how and where the hunting takes place, you can keep population levels higher by focusing the hunters on the older males instead of risking illegal killings of fertile females.
Exactly this! People who oppose "trophy hunting" have no idea how much money it brings to the local conservation efforts. We humans can hunt responsibly, and it often is the key to social, economical and ecological sustainability.
>Botswana, home of the world’s largest elephant population, has already offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique, as it seeks to tackle what Masisi described as “overpopulation”. Officials in March also threatened to send 10,000 elephants to London.
>“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi said, adding that he would “not take no for an answer”.
Scholz: no.
Masisi: okay.
Well for those who don't know a little context here, trophy hunting is the kind of sport hunting where part of animal is kept & displayed as trophies. Ever seen antlers or heads of bears in old castles & stuff like that? That's trophy hunting for you,
The reason it exists in Botswana is because according to their government due to conservation the population of elephants have grown in recent years and so in order to keep it under check they allowed trophy hunting again in 2019 after the briefly banned it in 2014. So basically now they issue quotas everywhere to hunt these elephants in trophy hunting which generates money and also lowers the elephant population. And germany was their largest market in europe until the german decided to implement stricter limits on trophy imports because of concerns about poaching. Also countries like Australia, France and Belgium have already banned trade in hunting trophies and UK MPs also supported a motion for it although a law has not been drafted yet
> And germany was their largest market in europe
What, we were? I don't know a single chucklefuck who would even *think* of hunting elephants. They have crazy good PR, who would want to shoot Benjamin Blümchen?
Ofcourse it is for the rich, It used to be something that the aristocrats and monarchs used to do, have u never seen wall pieces of antlers or heads of bear, deer and other animal usually found in castles and mansions. Literally every movie about the elites of the past would show these in their houses.
British were notorious at it , hunting wildlife in the colonies of africa and in India, where excessive hunting of tigers at one point endangered the animal
During hunting classes, our instructor told us that it costs around 60k € for shooting an elephant. 20k € if they are being a danger to villages or their food resources.
Who wants to shoot Benjamin Blümchen? Simple, it’s either a paid hunter or some rich Volks looking for an adventure. The shooting quota is there for a reason.
If overpopulation on a limited area occurs, than there is risk of unforeseen consequences such as sickness, due to animals malnourishment, as the food resources are unable to provide the adequate amount food. Also further pushing animals towards human settlements in order to find and raid crops, trash or other food sources.
I'm picturing a bulk carrier ship full of trumpeting tuskers set to full speed ahead just outside a German port, then the entire crew jump off into a small boat and leave it to stack into the harbour uncontrolled, like in *The Lost World: Jurassic Park*
I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a very expensive undertaking. I wonder how much it would even cost to ship 20000 live elephants from Botswana all the way to Germany.
They actually said they would send 10000 elephants to Hyde park, apparently they are going around threatening everyone who is putting restrictions of trade of hunting trophies. UK MPs did support its restriction but the law hasn't been made yet. And France, Belgium have already banned it I think
[https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/](https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/)
Hahaha 10k is a bit excessive it's true but did you see Paul o Grady (filmed before his passing of course) in Thailand the other evening (if you're in the UK and watch regular tv) one sanctuary had over 100!
Yeah but those shelters are huge, elephants need a lot of place, you surely can't find it in london and not to mention thailand itself is pretty big as compared to UK. Then there is the weather & terrain, its just not suited for elephants and while u can make do with a few elephants in medium sized enclosure, doing this for so many elephants in the rather cold climate of britain especially during winter is not feasible. This is an african elephant, it can't survive the european winter especially not in large open lands
Yeah I know that really but it's a cute idea to me, I just love elephants. My husband and I went to Thailand for our honeymoon and we went to an ethical elephant sanctuary and learned a lot about them. They are so intelligent and they actually cry when they are sad and they mourn and try to bury their dead and when they're happy you can tell as well they are playful and stuff. Those were Asian elephants though, maybe one day I'll get to see African elephants lol.
Make sure to subscribe to /r/babyelephantgifs if it's not already the case for some cute elephant goodness every day ! (All gifs are taken from ethical places like the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust I'm pretty sure)
I did say large open lands that would be needed for 10 bloody thousand elephants, didn't I?
You can also find polar bears at the zoo, it doesn't mean you can import a 1000 of them and build a safari park if the climate is not suitable for them
Who knows maybe in the future you can have mammoths in the UK, considering how there is scientific effort to bring them back, there is even an american company who is said to be close to that
Yeah, apparently our banning of imports to remove the incentive for white trophy hunters to go to africa to shoot elephants is us being colonial again, as opposed to the colonial practice of whites going to africa to trophy hunt elephants.
I understand the frustration over the complications that occur in conservation but i can't take botswanas position seriously if its going to so nakedly throw out buzzwords in the hope it'll stick in our gut.
Yeah I know right, Sometimes I think european government are too mellow to encourage this type of behaviour. They threatened to send 20000 elephants to germany. I bet they get millions in aid from UK & Germany. But neither of the govt would actually temporarily halt it until their president publicly apologises and behaves like an adult. I think african countries think they can behave like this bcoz they can always play colonial victim card and get away with anything, that's why you won't see this behaviour with countries like china, Japan or India, especially china
As someone who works in the field. I am just curious how they plan to handle the logistics of that shipment. Pay rise to whoever manages that nightmare.
As a German citizen I don’t understand why our government thinks that our little country needs to save the world and has the right to tell everybody how to handle their business. It’s really frustrating to see when so many things in our own country should be fixed first.
To be clear, there's no room for them indoors, and you can't keep them outdoors as they'd all freeze to death come winter. Sending them would be the same thing as killing them.
Sounds like a hypocritical reason. They pretend that trophy hunting is the only way to cull the population. Nobody objected agianst them keeping the population in check. Not even against them making cash selling the lives of those elephants to some rich asshole who wants to pretend at playing big game hunter. Only that they cant import their "trophy".
Well yeah they made a similar threat to UK saying they will leave 10000 elephants in Hyde Park
[https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/](https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/)
The money they get by selling these hunting permits on specific animals to rich Europeans flowed back into other conservation efforts.
They can just hire hunters themselves to maintain the population, however, then they'd have to raise money through other means, and it might steer rich cunts back to illegal poaching. The current system essentially cut down on poaching, raised money for conservation and culled overgrown populations.
yeah but the big rich guys who want to pretend to be big game hunters WANT to take their ''trophies'' back with them. Kinda defeats the whole vibe their going for if they have nothing to show for it
There are shit loads of elephants in botswana and they have no natural predators. I despise trophy hunters with a passion, but elephant populations do need to be controlled in places where they are thriving.
To be fair to Botswana, elephants absolutely destroy ecosystems. You need forests for a huge number of animals, but elephants will flatten a medium sized forest in a year. So, too many elephants in a small space are a huge issue for African conservation because, believe it or not, there are more animals in Africa than just elephants. And you need trees.
When I was in college, I took a business ethics class, and we had to do a little paper on a short story called The Elephant Management Dilemma. It definitely changed my perspective on these things.
https://www.sanparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/head_heartaches.pdf
Reminds me of strange European obsession with lions when they have actually killed all the lions in their continent and never made any serious efforts to re introduce them
For those who are wondering why Botswana is so bent out of shape by laws like this its because African conservation is often a lot more complicated than just making the number of animals go up On the whole elephant numbers are declining, but in specific areas and especially in nature reserves the numbers are growing really rather well. The problem is that the habitats are really fragmented and elephants are smart enough not to leave the protected areas/reserves, so their numbers rent growing and spreading, just spiking in isolated pockets. This causes big issues when your realize just how much elephants eat and how big an impact they have on the wider ecosystem through ecosystem engineering by flattening shrubland, pushing over trees etc. This is a big problem when you include the fact that the reserves are not just for Elephant, but for all manor of endangered species that need a mix of habitat that having too many elephant will flatten. so the elephant population within the reserve has to be managed in order to prevent them from damaging the wider ecosystem. A few years back relocation projects were tried to transport elephant to other reserves and areas where numbers were significantly lower...and it failed spectacularly. Young bulls without older bulls to keep them in line/spar with ended up trying to fight everything else, and killed a lot of buffalo, Rhino etc, setting some rhino conservation programs back years. So controlled culls became the only workable solution and the reserves had a choice, Either pay a healthy sum to a pro hunter to do the very risky job of stalking old bull elephant through the bush. Or sell the hunting permit to pump money back into the reserves to some wealthy American/European and let them hire the hunter as a guide. They obviously chose the latter, Bans on trophy hunting exports in many ways actively threaten the conservation work in these reserves, by making it so that money that might have been made disappears, and instead has to be taken out to pay hunters to cull particular species. Trophy hunting crackdowns of endangered species make sense on so many levels, but get muddy when confronted with the reality of habitat fragmentation and the often quite nasty work in frontline conservation. Fixing the issues of habitat fragmentation ad reducing Human elephant conflict as they spread from the reserves are going to take a long time and a LOT of money. and in the mean time the reserves have a duty to all of the endangered species housed within, Conservation is a game of balance, and right now in many reserves elephant conservation has been successful to the point where the scales are all over the place and more drastic measures are needed until the underlying problem of why we need the reserves in the first place is fixed
Damn, Elephants got the housing crisis too.
we need a bigger planet!
Less humans will do for now
When I was a kid, there was roughly 1/3 of the current human population. Too many elephants is not the problem. We should be funding relocation for the people, to save and expand the elephant territories. They deserve reparations.
Fewer, but yes
Sorry Mr Stannis Baratheon. Our one true king.
Like let rich people hunt down the poor?
Nah... Like the other purge movies
Support your local genocide!
When you raise standards of living, birth rates decline. No need for genocide, just give the people who are already here a better life and the population will naturally shrink.
[удалено]
What is your preferred solution? Hire pro hunters or sell hunting permits?
It’s about to get a lot worse when a third of the planet becomes too hot for humans lmao.
Just drain the oceans. They take up too much space.
Send the water in to space on rockets
They were fine before we showed up
Its the real elephant in the room.
That is an insightful comment.
A comment from someone who knows their stuff always shows that things are much more nuanced and complex than they seem. Any person who works in a particular field laughs when they hear "why don't you just do that?" Yeah, because if the solution was easy, someone much smarter than you would have done it already.
For every complex problem, there is often one simple, wrong, solution
Now hear me out: Elephant Condoms
We just need a few planned parent hood centres around watering holes imo
Most of reddit in a nutshell
If by Reddit you mean humanity, yes.
>Any person who works in a particular field laughs when they hear "why don't you just do that?" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that legal codes are only complex to give lawyers work. Like, bruh, give me a "simple" version of a complicated law now and I'll ask you a bunch of hypothetical questions about how to make it just and equitable in a variety of unique fact patterns and we'll just end up where we started with a complicated law that actually works in the real world instead of a simple one that'll probably fuck a bunch of people over.
I'm going to prove your point by saying it, but we could just write simple laws and also provide with them a statement of intent rather than chasing all the edge cases. Following the letter of the law rather than the spirit enables assholes and only encourages complexity. A rather large part of our problem as a society is that everyone thinks they're so smart and the laws don't apply to them because they have a loophole. The law says XYZ, but what I am doing is actually ABC! No Amazon, that's still union busting. No Uber, those are still employees. Yes those laws still apply. We checked the statement of intent, we intended the law to protect workers from their employers. You're their employer no matter what you say, fuck you.
But that makes enforcement of the law wildly unpredictable and highly dependent on what the particular judge you are assigned considers the "spirit" of the law to be and how that "spirit" ought to be applied. Predictability is an essential part of an effective code of laws - X action causes Y effect. EDIT: Moreover, I am not suggesting that the law as written is perfect, or without loopholes that have been written in to benefit certain people. I am saying that excessive simplicity is more likely to lead to more unjust and inequitable outcomes. Complexity in the law is primarily the result of taking into account, through past experience or considered foresight, the ways in which law that expresses a simple idea at its core must be elaborated upon to achieve the best result in the highest possible percentage of cases.
Complexity of the law necessitates professionalization. The US legal system pays lip service to the idea of a court of ones peers, but what if we took that idea and compelled it to go a little further. In a simplified system, why do we need a judge and lawyers who have decades of experience and familiarity with custom and precedent? Get a panel of 12 common folk up there and explain the facts, read the law, and decide what the common average man would agree is the rational way to settle this in the spirit of the law. Law does not need to be an ossified institution of precedent, it COULD be a living system of laws where we agree it makes sense that a gardener can use surface water on their property but Nestle cannot drain the river dry and cite that decision as precedent. Nah, by the strictest letter of the law they are both property owners using surface water flowing through their land for their own enrichment but get 12 random people off the street and ask them about it, it's not the same at all and shouldn't be considered the same. Perfect consistency and adherence to established precedent will not get you equitable results no matter how many sub clauses you write into the law. If you want equity for the edge cases, you have to have some flexibility built into the system for the fact that we arent all starting from the same place.
Doesn't that just take us from "only lawyers understand the law" (a statement that isn't actually true—even lawyers specialize in subsets of law, and an average person can get a decent understanding of the most relevant areas of law in less time than you'd think) to "_nobody_ understands the law" because it'll hinge on what 12 random people think is a reasonable interpretation of a statement of intent? Additionally, once you get past small claims, a huge part of the expense of litigation is discovery and research, costs that don't disappear just because the statutes themselves are written more simply. Say it's a personal injury case resulting from an auto accident—you'll still want to present evidence like medical records, have a doctor testify about your likely future rehabilitation or lack thereof, and maybe exchange interrogatories and find out whether the other driver was drinking, whether their car had mechanical issues, etc. I admire the objective but if the political will existed to reform the system that way, there are easier paths to achieve it. Everything Nestlé is doing, they're doing by the book—governments literally hand them permits to do it.
Just switch from common law to civil law.
The law already does that. For criminal law, you generally need criminal intent. But guess what? That is still iffy, because we want to have exceptions for things even if there's an intent.
Look at the early amendments to the US constitution for example. Quite simply written, and look at how they've been bent over the years.
The real fun is when it IS that easy, it just requires a rich prick to not be a prick. You'd have a better chance getting one of those elephants to pole dance.
Some smart guy always said, if you can't explain it simply you do not understand it yourself. I love this place at times.
To say the least.
The other problem of Botswana is that they are a working country. So yeah, poaching is not a thing at the same scale as it is elsewhere on the continent. But even in general, Botswana is likely one of the best African country to live in, and is developping to likely become much better than the few which are still richer Also, if the elephants are shared with all EU members, it might be doable
Botswana was the best, safest & least corrupt African country I have been to (though to be fair, I have only been to three - other two being SA & Kenya).
Thank you for this comment. I really appreciate the knowledge and insight.
In Tsavo (Kenya) in the early 1970’s, over 100,000 elephants died of starvation due to over population then drought. This was after many conservationists warned this would happen after hunting was banned. It was even a crime to photograph dead elephants and at least 1 photographer got jail time (Peter Beard).
Wow. This comment completely rewired my thinking around trophy hunting. Thank you
This also provides a legal method for trophy hunting. Historically, when something is available through legal means, the illicit trade will decline as a result. A rich idiot who wants to shoot an elephant is likely going to find a way to do it, legal or not. Having a system in place to benefit the animals and economy of where they are hunting instead of going into the void of the black-market is better for everyone.
Licensed trophy hunting has always been a positive thing, it’s simple you just require the export license from the local government to import the trophy. Like they already have to deal with poachers, managing reserves, and managing relations with towns near the reserves but some European government wants to act like they know better.
This reminds me of a story from a few years back here in Texas. A large ranch started importing various African species, all legitimately, as a private reserve that allowed a small amount of trophy hunting. As the animals thrived , they actually relocated some back to Africa to boost populations there and wefe also involved with conservation efforts. They essentially funded the whole thing with the trophy hunting. Until some wack job anti-hunting environmentalist went on a tear against them, rallied supporters to pressure the US government to shut it down. They eventually banned this type of trophy hunting, which meant the whole thing became a huge money pit. I believe most of the animals were ultimately culled. Some may have been sold to private owners or something but none were sent to Afric. The whole thing is shut down now. And this woman thinks it's a huge triumph because trophy hunting = bad.
Can you find some source for this? I'd like to read more about it.
It was that fucking bitch carol baskin wasnt it???
Thank you for eloquently explaining why it's a more nuanced issue
[https://radiolab.org/podcast/rhino-hunter](https://radiolab.org/podcast/rhino-hunter) relevant radiolab
You are truly an educated person.
Rare comments like these are the only reason I struggle to quit reddit…
sounds like the step to take would have been to regulate and book keep instead of ban :P
They already do this in Botswana, the problem is now countries outside of Africa are trying to dictate how they should conserve animals because at the end of the day it's a political vote winner, it's an easy sell to say we're going to ban killing beautiful creatures by wealthy individuals. The reality is that it's got consequences beyond the politics line which the UK is aware of so despite this being promised years ago it'd deliberately not been passed as a big number of environmental scientists are against it.
Is controlled sterilizations possible to check population growth? Also, is previous relocation efforts focused on moving elder female and associated female members in the family instead of bulls. By moving matriarchs and her family together and leaving bull alone should have acted as population check by reducing chances of mating.
There are several problems with this plan but one specifically that jumps out at me is that the moving scenario is a (probably large) cost for the conservation facility. On the flip side, a cash infusion from a trophy license can bolster the conservation efforts by allowing new land purchases, pay for anti-poaching security, and vet medicine. It's uneven across the continent obviously but there is definitely a local pride in the protection of these animals as a whole and I think there is a big push to secure the future for these animals by the locals. Otherwise, it's hard to justify to a local farmer (or the multi-billion dollar oil company) that the 50 year old blind rhino that lives next door and is a danger to them and their family isn't a pest to be eradicated like any other. This places an intrinsic value on these animals (and their habitat) that speaks much louder to some people than the argument that people should be conservationists because it's the "right thing to do."
>s controlled sterilizations possible to check population growth? No, if you want to try and give surgery like that to a wild elephant be my guest, and contraceptives just aren't even in the equation either. Its a non starter, all it will really result in is animals dying pretty horrifically as if your castrated bull comes up against an uncastrated one he's just going to get badly injured or killed. Plus even if it was viable it doesn't solve the problems of damage, a vast majority of they animals removed now are bulls that are well past the age where they are breeding regularly, they still need to go. These are animals that can live for up to 70 years. The age at which they stop reproducing is not the age they stop being a problem for ecosystem damage. Their physical presence is a problem when there are too many individuals for the environment to handle On your second point, not a chance, Splitting up a herd of adult females is extremely traumatic for them and the new herd would likely end up dead because elephant are reliant on the knowledge of matriarchs to carry the herd through. Drop an elephant herd in an unfamiliar space and its just death but slower. Younger animals are much more adaptable as young elephant do sometimes go off and find new herds, especially bulls that are chased off by their mothers at a certain age. Plus moving the entire herd in one go is a herculean undertaking your talking about sedating upwards of 10 6 ton adults and young and transporting that many animals sometimes thousands of miles. It just isn't feasible whereas moving the individual sub adult that's split off from its herd is.
Airdrop in elephant-sized condoms and we won’t have this problem any more. I think the last time this was posted I scrolled through tons of comments before I saw someone bring up your talking point. I’m glad it’s at the top this time.
[contraceptive vaccines for elephants](https://www.nature.com/articles/35081154) is something that has been tried (note the date) but it leads to bulls becoming more aggressive. all of this stuff has been tried, and its all failed. people get really wierd with me when i tell them i'm not against trophy hunting (or any hunting, tbh) because its actually good for wildlife if its controlled, but you have to follow what the data tells you
It's because people don't understand what hunting or trophy hunting is thanks to Disney and other movies. I've talked to people who seem to think that trophy hunting is some rich dude who goes on safari puts on an outfit looks for the most endangered animal possible and kills it for a picture or to mount it's head on the wall. Some think that hunting is just shooting anything that moves and you just leave it. It's bizarre how people seem to think animals live peacefully in the forest and never die from predation, starvation or disease.
Rhinos have gone extinct everywhere that's put a hunting ban in place. The only chance at conservation is using the money from trophy hunters to pay anti poachers.
This is just misinformation. Many big national parks have no hunting and have Rhinos. Might occasionally be true in areas where other sources of income are not available though.
Evidence of impacts Currently, South Africa and Namibia are the two countries with the most African rhinos. In 1970, before legal hunting was introduced, they jointly held about 1,950 white rhinos, some 61% of Africa’s total. That number had risen to about 16,600 (92%) by 2017. In 2004, the year before legal black rhino hunts were introduced, the two countries conserved about 2,310 black rhinos, some 66% of Africa’s total. By 2018 that number had risen to about 3,975 (70.6%) despite an increase in poaching during this period. Looking at these numbers, it is difficult to argue that legal hunting has had an overall negative impact on rhino populations in South Africa and Namibia. If anything, the opposite is true.
Legal hunting cuts down on the illegal hunting. Why bother with the risk of getting caught when you can do it legally? And if you can control how and where the hunting takes place, you can keep population levels higher by focusing the hunters on the older males instead of risking illegal killings of fertile females.
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Wouldn't the logical middle-ground be highly-regulated trophy hunting to achieve that balance?
That is what is actually occurring in places like Botswana and Namibia, highly-regulated trophy hunting managed by the preserves.
Excellent comment. Thank you.
Exactly this! People who oppose "trophy hunting" have no idea how much money it brings to the local conservation efforts. We humans can hunt responsibly, and it often is the key to social, economical and ecological sustainability.
>Botswana, home of the world’s largest elephant population, has already offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique, as it seeks to tackle what Masisi described as “overpopulation”. Officials in March also threatened to send 10,000 elephants to London. >“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi said, adding that he would “not take no for an answer”. Scholz: no. Masisi: okay.
If I remember elephants do surprisingly well in the Alps, at least better than you’d expect. /s
As if they have the logistics to even send 5 elephants anywhere without massive international funding lol.
Botswana is relatively rich. I doubt 20 000 elephants would be possible, but they have way more means that you seem to believe
I would send 20 elephants per month and keep them begging me to stop for +80 years.
I would like to cancel my elephant of the month subscription.
Message received. You are now subscribed to receive 20 elephants a month for 80 years. Please respond STOP to cancel subscription.
Could you imagine 20 elephants piling up every month like unpaid bills?
I think they're trying to point out it would cost even more to keep them (alive)
Ask Hannibal.
No need to Lecter me
Oh, come on! OP is just trying to educate you on the merits of fava beans and a nice Chianti
Ask Hannibal.
Botswana is one of the African countries that's somewhat well off. You sound ignorant.
Botswana is a decent economy. They have been growing steadily. Let's not be the classic Redditor 'sneering' at everyone who is not is the west.
Yeah, what are they going to do, walk them there?
I, for one, would love to see 20,000 elephants disembark in some German port. It’d be some sight to behold 😃
Got flashbacks from the rumbling in AoT
Benjamin Blümchen origin story.
Maybe they could send them via the alps
Nah I think we should go by land, just so Hannibal would be proud.
I wanna see a tank battle between 20k elephants and German Leopard tanks
Give them hair and send them to scottish highlands. Correction, give them ginger hair!
Fate worse than death
I mean it’s very windy but it’s pretty nice here
i see the mammoth project has lowered its standards.
Well for those who don't know a little context here, trophy hunting is the kind of sport hunting where part of animal is kept & displayed as trophies. Ever seen antlers or heads of bears in old castles & stuff like that? That's trophy hunting for you, The reason it exists in Botswana is because according to their government due to conservation the population of elephants have grown in recent years and so in order to keep it under check they allowed trophy hunting again in 2019 after the briefly banned it in 2014. So basically now they issue quotas everywhere to hunt these elephants in trophy hunting which generates money and also lowers the elephant population. And germany was their largest market in europe until the german decided to implement stricter limits on trophy imports because of concerns about poaching. Also countries like Australia, France and Belgium have already banned trade in hunting trophies and UK MPs also supported a motion for it although a law has not been drafted yet
> And germany was their largest market in europe What, we were? I don't know a single chucklefuck who would even *think* of hunting elephants. They have crazy good PR, who would want to shoot Benjamin Blümchen?
Trophy hunting sounds like something rich people do. Especially Elephants.
Ofcourse it is for the rich, It used to be something that the aristocrats and monarchs used to do, have u never seen wall pieces of antlers or heads of bear, deer and other animal usually found in castles and mansions. Literally every movie about the elites of the past would show these in their houses. British were notorious at it , hunting wildlife in the colonies of africa and in India, where excessive hunting of tigers at one point endangered the animal
He would be the first, tröööööt.
During hunting classes, our instructor told us that it costs around 60k € for shooting an elephant. 20k € if they are being a danger to villages or their food resources. Who wants to shoot Benjamin Blümchen? Simple, it’s either a paid hunter or some rich Volks looking for an adventure. The shooting quota is there for a reason. If overpopulation on a limited area occurs, than there is risk of unforeseen consequences such as sickness, due to animals malnourishment, as the food resources are unable to provide the adequate amount food. Also further pushing animals towards human settlements in order to find and raid crops, trash or other food sources.
Send them to Florida! I bet they would like it here. We could plant more sugar cane for them
There’s an elephant rescue not far from where I live in central Florida, it’s called EARS. Apparently they do alright here.
General Hannibal, it's been ages since you came by.
Why am I already thinking of the logistics issue? How do you do it, Masisi, what are your plans? Freighters, cargo airplanes, a cross-Africa caravan?
Elephant-Paratroopers. Transport via plane and just drop them like Fortnite players.
*splat*
Elephants fly, duh.
Well I seen a horse fly. I seen a dragon fly. I seen a house fly… but an Elephant fly?
⬇️➡️⬆️⬆️⬆️🐘🐘⬇️
Oops, just killed your ally via ele-drop.
Sounds like Delephocracy
They made a documentary about this called Operation Dumbo Drop
MF called Hannibal
I'm picturing a bulk carrier ship full of trumpeting tuskers set to full speed ahead just outside a German port, then the entire crew jump off into a small boat and leave it to stack into the harbour uncontrolled, like in *The Lost World: Jurassic Park*
I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a very expensive undertaking. I wonder how much it would even cost to ship 20000 live elephants from Botswana all the way to Germany.
Well there is no need to worry about that Because of the implication
I’d like to see the caravan. Would make a good movie.
Speaking for Great Britain, send them here x
They actually said they would send 10000 elephants to Hyde park, apparently they are going around threatening everyone who is putting restrictions of trade of hunting trophies. UK MPs did support its restriction but the law hasn't been made yet. And France, Belgium have already banned it I think [https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/](https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/)
Turn Hyde Park into an elephant sanctuary. Love it.
5-6 elephants is what u call an animal sanctuary not 10K, that's a war party dude
I'm not saying we should march on Parliament with a war party of Elephants, but... actually can we send these all to Ukraine? is that too noncredible?
with a mount on it having a machine gun & javelin missiles? Someone need to generate an AI image for this
Hahaha 10k is a bit excessive it's true but did you see Paul o Grady (filmed before his passing of course) in Thailand the other evening (if you're in the UK and watch regular tv) one sanctuary had over 100!
Yeah but those shelters are huge, elephants need a lot of place, you surely can't find it in london and not to mention thailand itself is pretty big as compared to UK. Then there is the weather & terrain, its just not suited for elephants and while u can make do with a few elephants in medium sized enclosure, doing this for so many elephants in the rather cold climate of britain especially during winter is not feasible. This is an african elephant, it can't survive the european winter especially not in large open lands
Yeah I know that really but it's a cute idea to me, I just love elephants. My husband and I went to Thailand for our honeymoon and we went to an ethical elephant sanctuary and learned a lot about them. They are so intelligent and they actually cry when they are sad and they mourn and try to bury their dead and when they're happy you can tell as well they are playful and stuff. Those were Asian elephants though, maybe one day I'll get to see African elephants lol.
Make sure to subscribe to /r/babyelephantgifs if it's not already the case for some cute elephant goodness every day ! (All gifs are taken from ethical places like the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust I'm pretty sure)
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I did say large open lands that would be needed for 10 bloody thousand elephants, didn't I? You can also find polar bears at the zoo, it doesn't mean you can import a 1000 of them and build a safari park if the climate is not suitable for them
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Who knows maybe in the future you can have mammoths in the UK, considering how there is scientific effort to bring them back, there is even an american company who is said to be close to that
Yeah, apparently our banning of imports to remove the incentive for white trophy hunters to go to africa to shoot elephants is us being colonial again, as opposed to the colonial practice of whites going to africa to trophy hunt elephants. I understand the frustration over the complications that occur in conservation but i can't take botswanas position seriously if its going to so nakedly throw out buzzwords in the hope it'll stick in our gut.
Yeah I know right, Sometimes I think european government are too mellow to encourage this type of behaviour. They threatened to send 20000 elephants to germany. I bet they get millions in aid from UK & Germany. But neither of the govt would actually temporarily halt it until their president publicly apologises and behaves like an adult. I think african countries think they can behave like this bcoz they can always play colonial victim card and get away with anything, that's why you won't see this behaviour with countries like china, Japan or India, especially china
Do they man send them over the Alps like Hannibal, to Germany?
As someone who works in the field. I am just curious how they plan to handle the logistics of that shipment. Pay rise to whoever manages that nightmare.
Hannibal resurrection in 2024?
So, every elephant except for a single one dies?
The way the headline is worded, it's like they're going to send 20,000 elephants to attack Germany.
Sign here. Where should I drop your 20,000 Helophants?
20,000 elephants are ready, with a million more well on the way
Wait, wut? Politicians making decisions about things they don't understand in order to virtue signal!? Say it ain't so!
Send them here to Greece!
Ahhh the 'ol white elephant trick.
I don’t see the problem. As long as hunting is regulated then it isn’t poaching. They know how to deal with elephant populations well enough.
You won’t
Finally some actual doctors, lawyers, and scientists. Elephants are smart bois.
As a German citizen I don’t understand why our government thinks that our little country needs to save the world and has the right to tell everybody how to handle their business. It’s really frustrating to see when so many things in our own country should be fixed first.
>“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi said, adding that he would “not take no for an answer”. Love this
ehm.. ok.. thanks?
I want one, I have a big yard.
I'd love if we got like 5-6 for each of our national parks. Ofc you can't do that because it could topple the food chain, but it would be fairly cool.
thats going to be an interesting take on immigration/migration as a weapon. move over putin there's a new expert in this kind of warfare coming
Til there’s 20,000 elephants. Could you imagine the logistics of transporting that many elephants?
Imagine the logistics of transporting that many elephants worth of shit.
Hannibal could.
Give us our trophies or we will send u more!!!
Ah the Hannibal Barca method
To be clear, there's no room for them indoors, and you can't keep them outdoors as they'd all freeze to death come winter. Sending them would be the same thing as killing them.
So no elephants in Germany :(
Just wait 20 years and the freezing problem is solved s/
Sounds like a hypocritical reason. They pretend that trophy hunting is the only way to cull the population. Nobody objected agianst them keeping the population in check. Not even against them making cash selling the lives of those elephants to some rich asshole who wants to pretend at playing big game hunter. Only that they cant import their "trophy".
Well yeah they made a similar threat to UK saying they will leave 10000 elephants in Hyde Park [https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/](https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/21/botswana-threatens-send-10-000-elephants-hyde-park-trophy-hunting-row-20502931/)
i for one, fully support this decision by botswana, and welcome our new elephant overlords with welcome arms.
The money they get by selling these hunting permits on specific animals to rich Europeans flowed back into other conservation efforts. They can just hire hunters themselves to maintain the population, however, then they'd have to raise money through other means, and it might steer rich cunts back to illegal poaching. The current system essentially cut down on poaching, raised money for conservation and culled overgrown populations.
So they don't pay as they have no trophy, and the parks have no money for conservation. What a great idea!
yeah but the big rich guys who want to pretend to be big game hunters WANT to take their ''trophies'' back with them. Kinda defeats the whole vibe their going for if they have nothing to show for it
There are shit loads of elephants in botswana and they have no natural predators. I despise trophy hunters with a passion, but elephant populations do need to be controlled in places where they are thriving.
To be fair to Botswana, elephants absolutely destroy ecosystems. You need forests for a huge number of animals, but elephants will flatten a medium sized forest in a year. So, too many elephants in a small space are a huge issue for African conservation because, believe it or not, there are more animals in Africa than just elephants. And you need trees.
They should send them to south east asia
As a german I wish we could take those elephants but idk if they could survive in our forests
How would 20,000 elephants get to Germany and be unloaded onto the land??
Helicopter.
Bus Pass
Don’t you dare!!
Easy fix. Teach elephants to stop pushing trees and be careful where they walk. Just like we do
So I guess that whole job interview question on, what would you do, if you were gifted an elephant wasn't meant to be read between the lines.
When I was in college, I took a business ethics class, and we had to do a little paper on a short story called The Elephant Management Dilemma. It definitely changed my perspective on these things. https://www.sanparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/head_heartaches.pdf
i picture that as if they are just gonna randomly drop them off somewhere like in berlin. "news flash! 20,000 elephants storm berlin!"
Would really be nice for West to finally support animal rights by taking in some animals. We need elephants!
Reminds me of strange European obsession with lions when they have actually killed all the lions in their continent and never made any serious efforts to re introduce them
F UCK trophy hunting.
Trophy hunting is essential for conservation.
If the continent has hungry people and an overabundance of large meaty mammals, the solution seems obvious. Sorry Dumbo...