Elephant and Rhino Poaching On The Rise?

Ten elephants were gunned downed by a well-organized gang of ivory poachers using automatic weapons in Tsavo East National Park on March 28, 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) reported.

On the same day a total of seven elephants were killed by poachers at two sites on the outskirts of Kariba town in Zimbabwe in the AWF-designated Zambezi Heartland. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (DNPWLM) encountered intact carcasses all with missing tusks. Additional support has been requested from the Zimbabwe National Army to increase patrolling capacity in the area together with the local parks staff leading up to the next CITES convention to be held in November, 2002.

In Tsavo National Park, Kenya Wildlife Service officials moved quickly to deal with the elephant-poaching incident, sending both ground and aerial teams to track the gang down. They recovered ivory from nine elephants that had been buried by the poachers. They also found ammunition and guns - including an AK-47 assault rifle. A poacher was shot and killed after the poaching gang fired on rangers, highlighting the intensity of the poaching issue on the ground.

This incident is reminiscent of poacher activity in the 1980s when Kenya lost most of its elephants. In the Tsavo Ecosystem alone, elephants were reduced from over 25,000 to fewer than 5,000. During those times, it was typical for a gang to kill elephants and bury the ivory nearby while they continue hunting, as carrying hundreds of kilograms of ivory would slow them down considerably. The ivory would be collected at a later date and despite the apparent monotony of this vast landscape, the poachers are able to relocate and recover the ivory months or even years later. They navigate using mental maps of features such as trees and bushes that form patterns such as a triangle or an arrow pointing towards the cache.

These incidents follow reports that at least six eastern black rhino have been killed by poachers during the last six months in Kenya and more than twenty elephants during the same period. In an effort to restock protected areas that were decimated by poaching in the 1980's, recently elephant and rhino from Laikipia District (increasing wildlife population in the AWF-designated Samburu Heartland are being used as source populations to restock other areas of Kenya) have been moved to rehabilitated parks. In 2001, KWS translocated more than 50 elephants from an area of human-wildlife conflict in Laikipia, to Meru National Park. Last month KWS began moving rhinos to the park as well.

The security implications of increased elephant and rhino threats are a real concern to wildlife departments across the region. This incident may be related to the lead-up to the U.N. Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) where some countries will argue they should be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles. Poaching rings and illicit dealers may be stockpiling ivory in anticipation that the ivory ban may be lifted.

For years, some conservation groups have argued that any trade, including one-off stockpile sales, creates a market for any ivory - legal or illegally poached as from the elephants killed recently in Kenya. The CITES meeting will be held in November, 2002 in Santiago, Chile where once again southern African countries that wish to establish a legal trade in elephant ivory will try to make their case. At previous CITES meetings, the ivory trade issue has pitted countries with well-protected and burgeoning elephant populations from southern Africa against east African countries, such as Kenya, who are faced with fewer resources for elephant management and a policy environment based on strict protection which includes no-hunting policies.