Kenya Reels From an Upsurge in Elephant Poaching

This post was submitted by Edward Indakwa, Communications Officer, for the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s East Africa Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya.

He had, like all boisterous adult male elephants, done this for years: Trumpeting and lumbering through thorny bushes to a favoured waterhole in the Taita Hills Ranch near Tsavo East National Park, south-east of Kenya.

Thus the sudden and searing pain in his side was no big deal. He probably dismissed it as a harmless, thorny prick. But unbeknown to him, this was an arrowhead laced with deadly poison. It would kill him in a few hours and poachers who, like vultures, had been following as he slowly agonised to death would descend and brutally hack off his tusks.

There would be no dignified funeral. His kind would not weep around his comatose body in final salute as is the norm with elephants. Even the hyenas and vultures would keep off, forewarned by an innate alarm that his poison-drenched remains were no ordinary carcass.

Had the Tusker known better, he would have avoided this ranch like the plague, kept within the park’s protected boundaries. But then he had no way of knowing about boundaries, or that the poachers are back with vengeance and know no borders, either.

For barely four kilometres away, on this private property ensconced between Tsavo West and East National Parks, another elephant had, only days earlier, met a similar end – death swishing stealthily through the savanna on a poisoned arrowhead.

Further east - approximately 100 kilometres from this spot - three other elephants had been killed in a span of six weeks, on private ranches, too.

The turnaround has game wardens, like the Tsavo Parks’ Assistant Director in charge, Jonathan Kirui, confounded. “This trend is worrying. Elephants are dying from poisoned arrows outside the park, not the armed gangs we are accustomed to. Arrows are deadly because they are silent. Unlike gunshots, you only get to hear about it when it’s too late, when the elephant is dead and the poachers long gone,” he says.

He blames the one-off ivory stockpiles sale by southern Africa countries late last year. “We have noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo since,” he says. “With a kilo of ivory going for US$37.50 – which is lots of money here - this could be an incentive to local people who were not involved in the illegal trade in previous years to take up arms.”

But middle men and international profiteers have even more lucrative incentives for killing elephants, with a kilo of ivory fetching, according to experts, more than US$850 on the international black market.

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UPDATE: Here is a link to an Associated Press story with some additional details.

Comments

[Fred Smilek]

What a sad state of affairs...Let's hope anti-poaching efforts are more successful in the future.

Fred Smilek is the acting president of the Society to Save Endangered Species. It was founded two years ago by Fred Smilek along with his two best friends Charles and Jonathan. http://www.fredjsmilek.com

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[roshk]

I think that it is horrible that something like this could happen just near the boundaries of a national park, which have strict laws about poaching. I think that it is completely unfair that they actually have the nerve to poach something that is obviously part of a national park. Elephants do have a good sense of direction that helps them stay where they are safe and not in harms way but sometimes, just like us humans, they feel the need to explore or venture into the unknown and just for that, they are punished brutally by being murdered. I think it’s unbelievable how money can drive people to ends of the world for it and make them kill animals that should be thriving in our world instead of becoming extinct. They have a more deadly way of killing them now, not even giving them the chance to escape by using poisoned arrows. Also, it says that it would give them a slow, painful death by killing animals; it proves that that human cannot live without them to make a living, yet they kill them. What will happen when there are no more elephants left? When ivory is scarce? Hopefully, we would never ever have to experience this and by acting now we can help prevent it. On my blog, I have a way that maybe you and I with the help of others can stop this and put an end to this murder. Thank you!

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