July 2007
Kenya Wildlife Service rangers have
arrested seven professional Tanzanian hunters and their Kenyan guide for
illegally hunting around Tsavo West National Park.
The rangers who had laid an ambush at Koranze in Taita Taveta District
recovered firearms and ammunition in the Saturday arrest. The suspects
have been booked at Voi Police Station and are awaiting prosecution.
At the same time, three suspected game meat dealers and their driver are
being held at the Athi River Police Station on the outskirts of Nairobi
for illegal meat trade and poaching.
The three suspected dealers in game meat, also called bush meat, were
intercepted with 213 kilograms (470 pounds) of meat in five plastic sacks
before dawn Saturday morning at the Toll Station police check on
Mombasa-Nairobi highway, barely 10 kilometers (six miles) from Nairobi.
They will be charged with wildlife and public health offences once
investigations are complete. One member of the group escaped while police
were inspecting what the dealers had initially claimed to be "rice."
Kenya Wildlife Service and public health officials found the meat to be
that of two wildebeests and a young zebra. The animals were killed between
Kitengela and Isinya in Kajiado District in a wildlife dispersal area
adjacent to Nairobi National Park.
KWS investigators have found that this trade has been going on for the
past two months and the target markets are popular meat-eating places like
Kenyatta Market and City Market.
The game meat dealers sell their meat, passing it off as beef, at a low
price of 65 Kenya shillings (US$1) per kg at these markets, said Paul
Udoto, Kenya Wildlife Service communications manager.
The Kenya Wildlife Service officials are "concerned that this illegal
trade is not only wiping out priceless wildlife but also posing great
health risks to people."
"The uninspected meat has a very high risk of transmitting diseases like
anthrax and Rift Valley Fever to people," Udoto said.
The suspected poachers were carrying the meat at 4:30 am, a time outside
the legal requirement of 6 am to 6pm, the officials said they were
carrying the meat in plastic bags, which makes it "unhygienic for human
consumption."
KWS investigators also have found that poachers turn to cattle theft when
they fail to get livestock.
"We would like to appeal to land owners in dispersal areas to report
hunters for wildlife because they not only kill wild animals but also
resort to stealing cattle," said Udoto.
"We have intensified our intelligence gathering on game meat and will do
everything humanly possible to protect wildlife and people from the
dangerous trade in game meat," Udoto said.
The two major arrests in one day follow heightened surveillance by Kenya
Wildlife Service in collaboration with other government security agencies
and communities near wildlife areas.
After losing several elephants to poachers in the recent months, Kenya
Wildlife Service special operations personnel have stepped up security
along the Tanzania-Kenya border.
The Tsavo West National Park incident is the second involving professional
hunters straying across the border to shoot wildlife in Kenya.
In several other incidents, KWS says its rangers have exchanged fire with
Tanzanian poaching gangs, leading to the recovery of many weapons and the
elimination of several gangs.
The hunters cross over from Mkomazi Reserve in Tanzania where hunting is
legal into Koranze area in Taita Taveta District. Kenyan officials believe
that these incursions could be a result of a lack of wildlife in many
parts of Tanzania caused by "abused licensed hunting."
Kenya Wildlife Service and Tanzanian Wildlife Authority work closely on
wildlife security through a cross-border agreement facilitated by the
Lusaka Task Force.
The Lusaka Agreement Task Force, sometimes called the African Interpol for
wildlife, was established under the Lusaka Agreement, to fight wildlife
crime in Africa. To date, six governments are Parties to the Agreement,
which entered into force in December 1996.
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