“It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world,” he said.
Botswana, home to about 130,000 elephants according to the president, has sent 8,000 to Angola already. “We would also like to make such an offer to the Federal Republic of Germany,” announced Masisi. “We won’t take no for an answer.”
“We want our elephants to roam freely. The German weather is bad enough for them,” he added. “If you like them so much, then please accept this gift from us.”
Officials from the southern African country already protested a potential U.K. ban on safari hunters importing trophies, warning in March they would send 10,000 elephants to Hyde Park in London.
The animal rights organization PETA supports Lemke’s plans to restrict and possibly ban the import, calling trophy hunting “a hobby of rich, jaded people who have more money than morals.”
“The horrendous sums that amateur hunters spend on a hunting trip do not end up with the poor population or with a national park administration, but almost exclusively in the pockets of tour operators and hunting farm owners,” a PETA spokesperson told POLITICO.