Image courtesy of wildlifedirect.org – Hands off our elephants
Today, we woke up to the report that Ol Jogi had lost yet another rhino last night due to poaching! This comes only days after another Eastern Black rhino was killed in the act of poaching!
The Kenyan government has reportedly ordered the Kenya Wildlife Service to ‘audit’ security arrangements at the country’s private conservancies and sanctuaries, following the increase of rhino and elephant poaching.
Though the response from conservationists was generally received well, several pointed out that it was in fact the Kenya Wildlife Service which needed auditing and tighter controls, possibly even a new board, considering two rhinos were killed in the Nairobi National park and several more in Nakuru National Park, just in the recent past right under the KWS watch!
The alarming rate of poaching in Kenya since the beginning of 2014 has also caused an uproar with Kenyans calling on her political leaders to act swiftly, with suggested calls of “shoot to kill†on poachers caught on sight, seemingly becoming a proposed trend, in a bid to copy what President Museveni of neighboring Uganda enacted.
Figures of poached animals suggest a total of sixteen have been killed and we are barely done with the first quarter of 2014 and if this is what to go by, then the tourism industry in Kenya will suffer greatly and adversely affect the country’s economy.
Dr. Richard Leakey, a former Executive Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservationist and Dr. Paula Kahumbu, Director of Wildlife Direct and founder of the ‘Hands off our Elephant’ campaign are set to hold a press conference today aimed at addressing the looming poaching crisis in Kenya, and to humbly call upon the president of Kenya, to declare a state of National Disaster for elephants and rhinos amid an urgent need to competently deal with the problem which has seemingly swept into the country like a plague.