The issue is how to increase the elephant population not how to protect them from starvation.
And lacking matriarchs—dominant females to lead groups of cows, calves and younger males cannot grow up normal. They don’t know how to form regular herds and don’t understand what to do when confronted by threats. Without mature bulls to teach them how to behave, the males became unpredictable and dangerous, even picking fights with rhinos, pursuing them and goring them to death. They are without a doubt one of the most intelligent, social and empathic animals around.
It depends, locally some areas especially in Zim are overpopulated now. Just for information, the only cows that are ever shot are tuskless cows, as it is a genetic screwup that creates an ele that doesn’t have tusks to help them survive, so they basically bully the others and are notoriously aggressive. They shoot them to try to eliminate the gene as much as possible, there are tons of them in Zimbabwe.