Botswana to auction elephant hunting licences

Botswana will hold its first auction, since a ban was lifted, for trophy hunters with the aim of selling licences to kill 70 elephants.

The government is selling seven hunting packages, with each one containing licences to kill 10 elephants.

Bidders will have to deposit $18,000 (£13,900) in order to take part.

The 2020 hunting season will begin in April with licences to kill another 200 hundred elephants to be issued later.

Botswana had in 2014 issued a blanket ban on the hunting of elephants to protect the animals.

The ban was seen as a conservation success story.

But last year the ban was lifted by President Mokgweetsi Masisi in a move critics say is as an attempt to appeal to rural voters who are more likely to come into conflict with elephants.

Government officials argued that the animals were eating crops and at times trampling on people.

Botswana has the world's largest number of elephants with an estimated 130,000 within its borders.