Wildlife conservationists hope the worst is behind them

A KWS ranger recovers elephant tusks left behind by poachers. Photo/FILE

For the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the official custodian of the country’s wildlife, 2008 has been a year of mixed fortunes.

Despite the violence that the country experienced at the turn of the year, KWS officials were optimistic that the wildlife population would increase with most of the national parks and game reserves not negatively affected.

“Our facilities were untouched by the violence and, in some cases, provided a safe refuge for the surrounding communities that had been driven away from their homes. This pointed towards a possible future relationship between the KWS and the surrounding communities on conservation matters,” said Mr Patrick Omondi, a senior researcher with the parastatal, in a previous interview with the Sunday Nation.

Mr Omondi was referring to a case where people fleeing violent attacks by members of the Sabaot Land Defence Force sought refuge in the Mt Elgon National Park.

But his was seemingly a false sense of optimism, the fate of the wildlife having been decided at the annual conference by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) at the Hague in 2007.

The meeting allowed South African countries to have a one-off sale of ivory stockpiles to Japan and China. After the decision was made, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia began making preparations for the stockpile sales. The ivory to be sold to the two countries weighed a total of 108 tonnes.

Kenya was uneasy with the decision fearing it would result in the escalation of poaching of the African elephant within Kenyan borders and in countries such as Senegal and Sierra Leone, which backed Kenya’s position against the one-off sale.

Chinese nationals

In July, three Chinese nationals — two women and a man — were arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with 2.2 kilogrammes of ivory in form of bangles and chopsticks.

They were destined for Zimbabwe, one of the countries allowed to sell its ivory stockpiles. More than 600 kilogrammes of ivory were seized during the year.

This year alone, more than 50 elephants have been lost to poachers. Data from the KWS shows that elephant populations currently stand at 35,000, a fraction of the 130,000 that lived 35 years ago.

Jumbos were not the only animals whose existence was threatened. Efforts to conserve the lion, another of the big five, were also stepped up. According to KWS, lion numbers in Kenya have fallen from 10,000 to just over 2,000 in two decades.

Scientists attribute this to disease, human-animal conflicts and other factors that led to the death of a significant number of the big cat in its habitats. Mr Ogeto Mwebi, a researcher with the National Museums of Kenya, said that man poses the greatest threat to the king of the jungle.

“The human population has posed the biggest threat to the survival of the lion and its habitat,” he said, adding that such conflicts have in the past led to the extinction of certain sub-species like the desert lion.

In the recent past, some lions have been killed by pastoralists to protect their livestock.

Others threatened are antelopes like the Roan, the Sitatunga and the Sable antelopes, some of them with fewer than 10 individuals left. A KWS census of the Sable antelope eight years ago put their population at 70 from hundreds in the late 1970s.

Unfortunately for the antelopes, the International Union on Conservation (IUCN) does not recognise them as threatened.

“In order to protect an animal species from extinction, direct measures should be employed. This requires money that mostly comes from international organisations that base their donations on the IUCN listing,” said Dr Charles Musyoki, a KWS scientist.