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Actually, it's not a stuffed elephants head, it's just the tusks, cleaned and polished on pedestals.
The trouble with the perception of elephant hunting, is that people have been brainwashed by constant advertising by the World Wildlife Fund and other "animal rights" groups.
Do a little research and you'll find out that the WWF and other like-minded groups are a billion USD business. In 2005, the head of the WWF had a salary of $500,000.00 USD (as a "non-profit" orginization they have to provide this information to US government in order for the donations to be considered non-taxable). Add in travel expenses etc, and you can see why it is in their best interest to tug on the people's heartstrings (and wallets) to protect the poor, lovable creatures like elephants, etc.
As far as elephants in Zimbabwe, in 2003, (when I shot my elephant), there was an estimated 60,000 elephants in Zim, with another 15,000 "transistory" elephants that annually migrated in from neighboring countries. Ten percent or 1500 of these elephants were allowed to be legally hunted (at great expense I might add).
Other than the tusks, an ear, and some tail-hair bracelets, all of the meat and skin went to the tribe on whose land I killed the elephant. In addition, the safari operator had to pay several thousand dollars to the tribe to "hunt" the animal (not kill). If the elephant is not killed the safari agent loses his money and has to rebid on the elephant for the next years season.
This helps the people who need it most, the starving tribal people.
The problem with wild elephants is that they quickly destroy trees and other foodstuffs and then they start raiding (and killing as needed) the garden plots of the villagers.
In many national parks in souther africa, they have so many elephants that they perform "culling". The method used is they find a herd (usually a family group) and kill every last bull, cow, and calf in the herd. The reason they kill the entire herd, is that if even one elephant "escapes" it will join up with another herd, and from then on, whenever people are detected the entire herd picks up on the fear of the culling survivors and races off into the thick brush.
That unfortunately, hurts the eco-tour business, who pay good money to view "wild" elephants and stuff in the parks.
BTW, Just last week a woman and her 10 year old daughter were killed by an elephant that charged them on a walking eco-tour. The guide was also severely injured, but survived. The husband was unhurt (I wonder if he out ran his family and left then to die?).
Reality is often very different from perception.
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