Elephants responses to the return of hunting

Daer Supporter,

Since our last report there have been no more hunts in our study area, but with good rains, the crops are being raided and one elephant was shot by a farmer having been trapped in this field. Our research Officer continues to collect valuable data in the field on how the elephants are reacting to our presence and to date there has been no significant change, but with tourism numbers so low and Botswana recently red-listed, we are not experienced the number of hunts we were expecting. Given the low numbers of tourists over the past couple of years, we have the potential to investigate whether tourism numbers affect how elephants react.

The re-erection of the park fence on the western boundary of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park has meant that elephants are trapped on the community side and the spoor we are finding is showing us how they are trying to get back into the park, we will be making some recommendations to the authorities on how they may help them find their way back and we look forward to working with them in the new year.

We hope that this update finds you and your loved ones well and happy.

Stay safe.