[P.O.E.]

That’ll drive the price up and make poaching more attractive.

[nobamanomore]

Kenya disallowed hunting, went from 167K to 45K in numbers. Here is Zimbabwe’s situation.

n January, The Herald, one of Zimbabwe’s main daily newspapers, reported that there are 80,000 elephants in the country, more than the national game parks have the money or the ability to handle. Feeding these elephants uses up scarce resources, and Hwange National Park alone would spend up to $500,000 annually just for water for their elephants, said Geoffrey Matipano, the acting director of the National Parks and Wildlife Authority.

As a result, a Zimbabwean journalist, Jeffrey Gogo, argued that the country “has a right to draw income from its natural resources.” Matipano has also said that if legalized, trade in ivory could be used to “conserve the remaining animals.”

Some experts at the UN say that the elephant population could be a burden. David Phiri, the subregional coordinator and representative for the Food and Agriculture Organization, said, “Looking at this from a sustainable use of natural resources perspective, it is indeed the case that the large population of elephants in Zimbabwe has continued to adversely affected the sustainable use and management of the natural resource that these very elephants depend on.”

Phiri said that Zimbabwe has the environmental capacity to hold 50,000 elephants. The current population lies between 50,000 to 100,000, depending on government sources; others say the numbers are much lower.

“This high elephant population is above the carrying capacity, which would justify some culling/selling,” said Verity Nyagah, the UN Development Program country director in Zimbabwe. “The current population is stable, and any culling or selling should take into consideration factors like other ongoing population control measures, the current population growth rates, as well as poaching.”

[mountainlion]

That’ll drive the price up and make poaching more attractive.

That is liberals for you. If they auctioned it off they could have had $270M for law enforcement and welfare while crashing the ivory market. Sounds like something our pRedident would do.