'Not a joke': Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany over trophy hunting ban

No one is more tired of the debate over hunting elephants than The Republic of Botswana, which has the world’s largest population of pachyderms.

The African country is often considered a conservation success story but is struggling to manage a growing population of elephants, which currently stands at over 130,000, NBC News reported. Which is why President Mokgweetsi Masisi is taking issue with a new development in Germany this week.

Germany, one of the European Union’s largest hunting trophy importers, is moving to ban the importation of elephant trophies, according to NBC News. 

If passed, the ban would disincentivize trophy hunters in the European Union from going to Botswana, according to NBC News.

Masisi, who is unhappy with the recent developments, threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany as a result. The gesture is “not a joke” Masisi told Bild, a German tabloid. 

USA TODAY has reached out the German government and The Republic of Botswana for comment but has not heard back.

Here’s what we know. 

Germany ‘should live with the animals,’ can't begin to understand elephant predicament, president says

Despite Masisi’s threat to send thousands of elephant herds to Germany, a spokesperson for the country’s Federal Agency for Nature Conservation told NBC News that "there is currently no formal request of a transfer of 20,000 elephants from Botswana to Germany.”

“You should live with the animals the way you try to tell us to,” Masisi said about Germany.

There are quite a few “negative impacts” in connection with the number of big elephant herds in Botswana. Environmental damage, among them. 

Elephants are known to destroy vegetation "by trampling and foraging," which is "a major cause of concern,” according to the National Library of Medicine. Not to mention dangers posed to residents. 

“It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana," Masisi was quoted saying in NBC reporting. "We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world."

It's not immediately clear how or when Masisi would get thousands of elephants to Germany, but the president has dug his heels in on the subject, saying, according to NBC News: “We won’t take no for an answer."

Botswana has threatened to send herds of elephants to other countries before

Britain’s parliament approved a ban on the import of hunting trophies, joining Belgium, earlier this month.

Government officials from Botswana also “threatened to flood Hyde Park in London” with 10,000 elephants, NBC reported. There have been plenty instances of documented dissent over trophy hunting, from other governments and animal rights organizations, that prompted Botswana to initially ban trophy hunting in the country in 2014. 

Botswana reversed the decision a couple years later, citing “loss of income, damaged crops and elephants killing livestock,” according to NBC News. 

“Elephants are intelligent creatures and so steered clear of the hunting areas as far as possible until hunting was banned,” Dilys Roe, chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group, told NBC News. Once the ban was in place, the elephants “not only re-inhabited those areas but also ventured out onto the adjacent farmland with huge damage to crops and livelihoods."

Trophy hunting may seem like a "visceral representation of how humans endanger animals," but it doesn't actually "threaten the survival of species as a whole," NBC reported.

Trophy hunting may actually have the ability to aid in conservation efforts by “giving value to wildlife and therefore increasing the tolerance of local people to put up with dangerous wild animals on their doorsteps,” Roe told NBC. 

Germany probably won't see elephants despite threats from Botswana

Though it's highly unlikely that President Masisi would follow through with his plan to send thousands of elephants to Germany, or any other country for that matter, Roe says the point he made was valid. 

“We in London, Berlin, New York or elsewhere have no idea what it’s like to live alongside dangerous animals and simply be expected to put up with them,” Roe told NBC News. “We wouldn’t want elephants in our back gardens.”