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The killing of overpopulated animals is not a bad thing. It is certainly more practical than all the alternatives discussed, especially for a poor nation.
But let's not be coy here. This is not a case of a government "enlisting" visiting hunters, or a government unable to kill these elephants. Hunting elephants is big business, and each hunter pays over ten thousand dollars to kill one. Which is also not necessarily a bad thing (though the division of the proceeds can be messed up), as it provides funds for very poor nations (and some of those funds are even used to help fight poaching, which is great, but also another clear example that Africans don't really "need" rich white guys to do this).
As for the publicity stunt, well, it's not like godaddy was ever known for tasteful advertising.
So the only part that I find fault with all of this, really, is the whole "white man's burden" nonsense of the later justification.
Personally, I also find these "wild game" hunts ridiculous. There is more sport in hunting for deer in the United States than in these "safaris" in Africa, where these guys stay on luxury resorts and then someone else tracks and surrounds the animal and then the big macho hunter is driven there, with the only job of pulling the trigger against a static animal. It is as close to "shooting fish in a barrel" as it gets.
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