Botswana condemned for slaughtering elephants for independence celebrations

He said the system risked creating congestion and disadvantaging elderly people, pregnant women and people with disabilities, and suggested the meat should instead be processed into 5kg or 10kg packages to improve hygiene and ensure fairer distribution."For the sake of dignity, fairness and public hygiene, we respectfully call on the hunter and the relevant leadership to ensure that future distributions are properly organised," MP Simasiku Mapulanga posted on Facebook, attaching photos of people scrambling for meat around an elephant carcass. Botswana government/FacebookPeople across Botswana are gathering to mark the country's 60th Independence DayElephant meat is common in some wildlife-rich communities, particularly when meat from legal hunts is distributed locally, but it is not an everyday staple. Botswana also tightly regulates game meat, and its legal possession generally depends on proving it came from a lawful hunt.The decision has reignited a long-running and often heated debate in Botswana over how the country manages its huge elephant population.Botswana has more than 130,000 elephants and communities living alongside them have long complained about animals destroying crops, damaging property and sometimes killing people. The government has defended regulated hunting as one way of managing the elephant population and human-wildlife conflict while generating income for communities.