When poaching amplifies the effect of higher hunting quotas, it is bad news for the future of Botswana's elephant population and its contribution to the economy, according to research just in. Botswana - home to the world's largest remaining population of African elephants - is losing its most valuable wildlife asset at a rate far higher than officials have acknowledged, according to a major new report released by Elephants Without Borders (EWB). Combined with an aggressive trophy-hunting quota and rising mortality from hunting, drought and human-elephant conflict, the country's elephant management system is entering what researchers describe as a dangerous period of biological and economic fragility. Adding to this, elephant poaching in northern Botswana is now occurring with "alarming regularity", targeting the nation’s biggest and most economically significant bulls. According to one of the authors, Scott Schlossberg, "poachers and trophy hunters are both targeting the same elephants: older bulls with big tusks. So poaching directly affects hunting by reducing the number of bulls available to hunters. In the long run, controlling poaching is one of the best ways to ensure the sustainability of legal hunting."