Kenya police arrested four people and recovered 16 elephant tusks along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway.
Kenya police arrested four people and recovered 16 elephant tusks along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway.
On the same day, Kenya Wildlife Service rangers shot dead four suspected poachers in Mt Kenya region. Those are the ones that ended up at the business end of a law enforcers’ rifle.
That does not indicate that killing of wild animals to harvest trophies is a uniquely Kenyan problem. South Africa is also facing a grim rhino poaching crisis fuelled by an insatiable demand from Vietnamese and Chinese who want the animals’ horn, in the mistaken belief that it is a portion to add pep to traditional medicines, as a recreational drug to party goers to cure hangovers and even treat cancer.
South Africa lost 448 rhinos last year. While numbers this year are more alarming as rhinos are being felled at a rate of almost two per day.
In Kenya, this animal is under armed watch round the clock as Kenya is a signatory of the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that declares nearly all commercial trade in animal and plant species threatened with extinction illegal.
However, increasingly sophisticated and moneyed organised criminal gangs are better armed with state-of the art night-vision goggles, AK-47s and powerful hunting rifles.
Reply to this happen to hear in South Africa a poacher has been given 40 Years for Rhino killer!!
Reply to this At this stage the figures for 2012 is 585 rhinos that have been poached. Shocking statistics and they need to find the 'King Pins' behind this, not just the people that are actually doing the poaching, or we will lose all our rhinos at this rate. The rhinos are being shot at close range, so they know exactly where the rhinos are - highly sophisticated and organised crime! Round the clock armed watch is great, but more needs to be done. Let's hope they stop this in time!
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