A new Elephants Without Borders (EWB) report has exposed a startling reality at the heart of Botswana’s wildlife crisis: poachers and trophy hunters — two groups usually seen as opposites — are now competing for exactly the same elephants.
Both are targeting the biggest, oldest bulls, the animals with the massive tusks that symbolise Botswana’s fame, fuel its tourism industry, and keep rural communities economically afloat.
But this competition for giant tuskers is pushing the country into biological and economic danger.
Botswana’s Biggest Bulls Are Now a Shared Target
According to the study, poachers and hunters are selecting for the same high-value elephants:
- Poachers kill older bulls with the heaviest tusks for the illegal ivory trade.
- Trophy hunters seek out the same bulls to satisfy safari clients paying for the biggest trophies.
This means Botswana’s most important animals — its iconic tuskers — are being removed from two sides at once.
“Poachers and trophy hunters are targeting the same elephants,” says EWB researcher Scott Schlossberg.
“When those bulls disappear, it harms both conservation and the long-term sustainability of hunting itself.”
The Result: A Rapid Decline in Botswana’s Trophy Bulls
EWB found that poached elephants have an average age of 41 years, while normally dying elephants average 29 years. That age difference is economically devastating.
Big bulls:
- attract high-value photographic tourists,
- maintain elephant social structure,
- pass on the genes for large tusks,
- and help keep younger bulls disciplined and calm.
Losing them shrinks trophy size, destabilises herds, and wipes out the animals that visitors travel across the world to see.
Two Deadly Pressures, One Shrinking Population
Botswana has increased its trophy-hunting quota to 431 elephants in 2025, up nearly 50% from 2019. Combined with persistent poaching outbreaks in the north — sometimes killing 500 elephants per year during crisis periods — the pressure becomes unsustainable.
EWB’s simulation models show:
- Even small amounts of poaching drastically reduce trophy sizes.
- A decade of poaching can shrink trophy size for up to 50 years.
- High hunting quotas leave Botswana vulnerable to sudden population shocks.
This double pressure is now stripping the landscape of its biggest tuskers at a rate faster than Botswana can replace them.
A Silent Contest That Costs Botswana Billions
What was once a wildlife management issue has quietly become an economic threat.
With tuskers disappearing from both legal and illegal hunting, Botswana is losing an estimated BWP 2.5-billion every year in potential tourism and conservation revenue. Rural communities and local operators suffer the most as the bulls that draw premium-paying tourists vanish.
Two Opposing Worlds — One Shared Target
On one side of the law, trophy hunters pay to shoot the biggest bull they can find.
On the other, poachers kill the same bulls for black-market ivory.
Different motivations, same outcome:
Botswana is losing the elephants that matter most.
Unless policies change and poaching is aggressively controlled, this unlikely competition between hunters and poachers will continue to drain Botswana’s elephant heritage — and the billions of pula it should be generating for generations to come.