Botswana to auction elephant hunting licenses

With unfenced parks and wide-open spaces, Botswana has Africa's largest elephant population with more than 135,000.

Botswana will hold its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since controversially scrapping a hunting ban last year, a wildlife official said.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi's government in May revoked a moratorium, just a year after he succeeded Ian Khama, an avid environmentalist, who introduced a blanket ban in 2014 to reverse a decline in the population of wild animals.