A professional hunter has killed Botswana’s largest tusker elephant after paying $50,000 to participate in a hunt. The story was reported this week by the British newspaper Daily Mailwho reported that Leon Kachelhoffer claimed to have killed the animal, which had about 91 kg of ivory in its tusks..
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The events occurred on Botswana’s northern border with Namibia. The media confirmed with a spokesman for the hunting sector that, in effect, he pointed out that the elephant was about 50 years old and that it was shot down with a single shot.
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Kachelhoffer posted details of the hunt on his Facebook account, which he has called “an achievement,” and was even invited to a podcast to talk about the episode.
“To be in a position to hunt such an animal is an incredible privilege”told the presenter of Blood Origins, Robbie Kroger. “When you pick up an animal like that there’s a lot of remorse, a lot of sadness, you think what a great life this elephant has led. There’s more to shooting, taking a picture, becoming a hero and all that nonsense,” he added.
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Kachelhoffer’s actions have not been far from controversy, since, as some organizations have pointed out, there are only 40 ‘hundred-pound’ elephants left in Africa with at least one 100-pound tusk.
Even the hunting of this elephant was criticized by former Botswanan President Ian Khama, who banned hunting in that country before his successor Mokgweetsi Masisi reintroduced the practice in 2019.
“This was one of the biggest, if not the biggest tusk in the country. An elephant that tour operators were constantly trying to show tourists as an iconic attraction. Now it is dead,” Khama wrote on his Facebook account. “How does his death benefit our declining tourism (industry)? Incompetence and mismanagement have nearly wiped out the rhino population, and now this.”
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Botswana currently has a population of 130,000 elephants, but only a small portion corresponds to the well-known ‘big tusks’, such as the one hunted by Kachelhoffer.