Tanzania’s effective trophy hunting laws | Science

In their Letter “Stop elephant hunting in Tanzania borderlands” (19 July 2024, p. 265), J. Poole et al. object to recent killings of elephants by trophy hunters on the grounds that the targeted animals were important to population sustainability and were part of a long-term research study in Kenya. Although we agree that this elephant population is crucial to species conservation, we consider only collared elephants to be under study, not the entire subpopulation or all elephants monitored, and we do not agree that the handful of elephants killed by trophy hunters puts the population at risk. Poole et al. also suggest that Tanzania should make exceptions to the United Nations (UN) Principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, essentially ceding management of the elephant population to Kenya, but the UN principle has no exceptions and applies universally and equally, unless a bilateral agreement has been established and agreed upon by partner states.