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Updated Wednesday, April 3, 2024-09:59

  • Events Almost a hundred dead elephants are found in Botswana, "the largest massacre in the history of Africa"

The president of

Botswana

threatened

Germany

with

giving him up to 20,000 elephants,

angry because the German government criticized the pachyderm hunting and trophy exports that his country practices, according to him, to regulate the number of animals.

The Germans must "live with the animals now that they are trying to give us instructions," Botswana leader Mokgweetsi Masisi said in statements to the German newspaper Bild.

"It's not a joke," he added about his offer to send 20,000 pachyderms to the northern European country.

"We would like to give that gift to Germany," Masisi said, adding that he "will not accept rejection."

Botswana, a country in southern Africa, is home

to the largest population of elephants in the world,

around 130,000, with whom cohabitation is sometimes difficult, according to the president. The president referred to attacks against humans, towns and crops.

Criticism from the environmentalist-led German Environment Ministry concerns the elephant hunting trophies purchased by wealthy Western customers.

The ministry had already talked about the possibility of

strictly limiting the import of these trophies because of the poaching problem.

"In the EU we are holding discussions with the aim of extending the requirement for import permits (...) to other hunting trophies of protected animals," a ministry spokeswoman told AFP on Tuesday.

As Germany is one of the largest importers of hunting trophies in the EU, it has "a particular responsibility," he added.

Regarding the "gift" proposed by President Masisi, the German Environment Ministry said that

"Botswana has not yet contacted" the ministry about it

.

In 2019, Botswana lifted the total hunting ban imposed five years earlier to reduce the decline in the population of elephants and other species.

This lifting of the ban caused fury among environmental defenders. Commercial hunting is also an important source of local income.

For its part, Botswana decides each year a quota of animals that can be hunted. Last year, the country offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and 500 to Mozambique.