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Elephant culling plan in South Africa faces backlash over welfare concerns
4 Sep 2025South Africa
Animal welfare groups in South Africa are pushing back against a local government plan to allow culling and trophy hunting to reduce elephant numbers in Madikwe Game Reserve.
According to the North West Parks and Tourism Board, which oversees the 75,000-hectare (185,000-acre) wildlife conservation area in the country’s north, the elephant herd has grown too large. More than 1,600 elephants now live in Madikwe, more than triple the planned capacity of 500.
“Population reduction strategies will include both culling applied together with contraception at least,” board CEO Jonathan Denga told Mongabay by text message.
Animal welfare NGO Humane World for Animals told Mongabay its offer to introduce contraception at Madikwe has been repeatedly postponed since 2020, and still hasn’t been implemented.
Denga also suggested the board is open to relocating elephants to other conservation areas. “We will not preclude any requests for live elephants should anyone come to the fore and they have adequately suited habitats,” he said.
In 2024, 75 elephants died from starvation amid the region’s worst drought in a century, sparking concerns over the park’s management. But the proposed solution to kill more elephants, which Denga called a “realistic” option, has intensified criticisms.
In a July statement, the board said it wouldn’t “be driven by emotions or agendas that seek to keep South Africa and our province in the economic doldrums.” Revenue from hunting and culling would be reverted back into the reserve, it added.
South Africa’s largest animal welfare organization, NSPCA, condemned the plan, saying culling and hunting should never be routine solutions for controlling wildlife populations.
“We are alarmed by the framing and normalisation of lethal reduction as both viable strategy and economic opportunity,” it wrote in an Aug. 13 statement. “Elephants are sentient, intelligent beings with intricate social structures and emotional lives.
“Economic hardship, inequality, and community upliftment are real and pressing challenges,” NSPCA added. “But these cannot be solved by reducing living beings to financial levers.”
The average price to hunt an African elephant in 2023 was $26,500. For comparison, hunting a critically endangered black rhinoceros costs $300,000, while lions and buffalos are priced at about $13,000 a head. That’s according to data by the Professional Hunters Association, obtained by an access-to-information request by the Daily Maverick and reviewed by Mongabay.
A tender published in May 2025 by the North West Parks and Tourism Board, which has since been recalled and deleted, reportedly advertised 25 elephants, two black rhinos and 10 buffalos for trophy hunting at Madikwe.
Andrew de Blocq, environment spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance, a ruling coalition party, said the current situation could have been avoided. “Elephants don’t grow from a population of 250 to 1,500 overnight. They’ve known for a long time this was coming, and they’ve done very little to nothing about it,” he told Mongabay in an audio message.
Banner image: Elephant in Madikwe, South Africa. Image by Debbi via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
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Bear baiters poised to shoot 10,000 bears over garbage sites on federal lands
Help End Bear Baiting on Our Federal Lands
Help End Bear Baiting on Our Federal Lands
Trophy hunters shoot more than 10,000 bears every year by targeting the unsuspecting animals as they gorge on bait piles left out to lure them within range. It happens in national forests and on national wildlife refuges, and it even occurs on national preserves managed by the National Park Service. This is outrageous.
The animals, lured with heaps of rotting food, don’t have a chance. They are ambushed while their heads are buried in human-scented garbage.
This isn’t hunting. It’s awful for the bears, and it’s also a threat to hikers and others who use our public lands.
The Don’t Feed the Bears Act of 2025 (H.R. 4422), introduced by Rep. Shri Thanedar, would end this shameful practice on federal lands. It’s backed by more than 75 organizations, including hunters, conservationists, and animal welfare advocates.
➤ Send a message today to your federal lawmakers urging them to support this bipartisan effort to end bear baiting on public lands.
Together, we can stop this reckless practice and restore ethics and safety to wildlife management on our most cherished landscapes.
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Colorado Parks and Wildlife seeking input on how to manage mule deer population
CPW is doing a statewide survey to gather your ideas and concerns about how rangers can best manage the mule deer herds in our state.
By: Ryan Mutch
Posted 4:24 PM, Sep 03, 2025
and last updated 10:05 AM, Sep 04, 2025
COLORADO (KOAA) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is looking for your input on how to manage the mule deer population.
CPW is doing a statewide survey to gather your ideas and concerns about how Wildlife Managers can best manage the mule deer herds in our state. Survey results support plans that are in place for 10 years.
Scientists look at the following when making a plan for managing the deer population:
- deer herd size
- herd health
- hunting license numbers
“Some of the things that we’re interested in hearing about are how people interface with deer, if they view them as wildlife viewers or landowners, and then what kind of concerns they see moving forward, and that really depends on people’s perspectives, and that’s what we’re trying to gain right now,” said Julie Stiver, a Senior Biologist for CPW.
CPW’s South East Region, which includes Colorado Springs, currently manages five mule deer herds.
If you are looking to weigh in, you can fill out the survey on CPW’s website. The deadline is September 19.
USFWS releases pond counts, population status for North American waterfowl
ON 09-04-2025
LITTLE ROCK — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally released its annual Waterfowl Population Status report for the 2025 survey year on Tuesday, and hunters may see a familiar tone to last year’s report. According to the report, an estimated 34 million ducks were present in the traditional survey area across Canada and the northern U.S. earlier this summer. This is virtually identical to population estimates from 2024 (4 percent below the long-term average), which dictated the 2025-26 waterfowl hunting season frameworks.
The mallard population, which is of particular interest to Arkansas duck hunters, followed the trend of total duck numbers, remaining unchanged from last year’s count of 6.6 million. Northern pintails saw a 13 percent increase from last year with 2.2 million birds estimated across the survey area. The blue-winged teal population also remained unchanged from last year, still below the threshold for a 16-day teal season, so hunters should expect another nine-day season in next year’s framework.
Early reports of extremely dry conditions throughout the breeding grounds were confirmed in the report, which indicated a 19 percent decrease of ponds throughout the survey area. The hardest hit area of the traditional survey area was in the north-central U.S., which saw ponds decrease by as much as 34 percent from last year’s survey. Estimates of ponds in prairie Canada remained similar to last year’s counts, which were 27 percent below the long-term average.
The numbers from this year’s surveys will be used to set the 2026-27 season frameworks, and the adaptive harvest matrix for next year offers a liberal hunting season framework at the federal level for the 2026-27 season.
“Long-term data collected since 1995 has shown both higher and lower pond counts and population estimates and the liberal framework of 60-day seasons have been in place throughout that time,” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Waterfowl Program Coordinator Brett Leach said.
According to USFWS reports, this year’s mallard estimate is very similar to the 6.75 million-bird estimate in 2005. That year still saw liberal frameworks, and the population still increased dramatically in the next few years, following favorable conditions on the breeding grounds.
“Hunter harvest can play a role in overall populations, but it’s not as large of a factor as habitat on the breeding grounds during nesting season,” Leach said. “Shorter seasons and smaller bag limits in modern hunting frameworks can help when populations are at critical levels, but supporting wetland habitat where it counts far outweighs any small reductions in hunting mortality modified seasons may offer.”
“It’s also important to keep in mind that many other factors come into play throughout Arkansas’s duck season, and these numbers do not necessarily indicate a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ hunting season,” Luke Naylor, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Chief of Wildlife Management, said. “The driving factors for duck abundance in Arkansas are the timing and amount of flooded habitat on the state’s landscape and the timing of freezing temperatures and weather events in states north of us in the Mississippi Flyway.”
Naylor also warns hunters to enter into the 2025-26 hunting seasons with a bit of perspective on the total population. Mallards are still 17 percent below their long-term average population, and nearly half of the population counted during 2015, when observers estimated a record 11.6 million mallards.
“This shouldn’t be taken as gloom and doom, but some hunters have memories of the early 2000s and again in the 2010s, when those record-high duck populations were nearly twice what they are today,” Naylor said. “We’ve seen higher duck population and pond counts than this year’s reports, but we’ve also seen worse, and the ducks rebounded when habitat conditions were favorable.
“Given the best science available, duck populations are still sufficient to support continued liberal seasons,” Naylor added. “But the fact remains that mallard population estimates are half what they were only a decade ago. No doubt hunters will feel those impacts and likely see fewer ducks.”
AGFC Director Doug Schoenrock doubled down on the importance of habitat, both in Arkansas and in the breeding grounds, to the state’s waterfowl-centered culture.
“We’re fortunate that the duck population is similar to last year, but wetland habitat remains a major concern, both in Arkansas and on the breeding grounds,” Schoenrock said. “We can’t control the weather, but we can control having the right habitat in place when conditions are favorable. There’s no magic bullet or easy fix; it takes dedication, hard work and many partnerships in both the private and public sector to keep habitat on the ground. We’re dedicated to continuing those partnerships and continuing Arkansas’s duck hunting heritage.”
Visit www.fws.gov/library/collections/waterfowl-population-status-reports for the complete report from the USFWS, as well as a collection of previous waterfowl population status reports.
Exposing the Big Game 
