If you’ve had a conversation with anyone recently returned from the Kruger National Park (KNP), you’re likely to hear: “It was lekker, but there are too many elephants! The damage to the trees is crazy.” The idea is often linked to thinking that suggests we should cull elephants as a ‘necessary evil’ to manage numbers, and that we should reopen a global trade in ivory. I’ve written at length on why the latter is a poor policy idea. But there are three major problems with the idea of “too many elephants” that need to be addressed.