KWS scales up war on poaching

PHOTO | FILE

Two Kenya Wildlife Service [KWS] officers in Mombasa display two elephant tusks they recovered from suspected poachers.

What you need to know:

  • KWS is spending Sh7 million every month in the fight against poaching and illegal grazing in the parks

The Kenya Wildlife Service has established several security outposts in and outside national parks to scale up the fight against poaching in Taita Taveta.

Tsavo Conservation Area acting assistant director Michael Wanjau said KWS has put up fully-fledged security units in ranches, which had turned out to be the target of illegal grazers who also engage in poaching.

During a media briefing at the park headquarters in Voi on Wednesday, Mr Wanjau said they were working with the Provincial Administration to wipe out the menace.

He said they were holding meetings with ranch management committees on the need to conduct a census of their tenants.

According Mr Wanjau, some of the ranches hold more livestock than required and harbour armed herdsmen, who engage in crime.

“We have lost two of our rangers this year in the hands of poachers and several elephants killed, something that we cannot take for granted,” he said.

Illegal inhabitants

After consultation with the Provincial Administration, an agreement was reached that the security agencies should work hand-in-hand to weed out illegal ranch inhabitants.

He said KWS was spending Sh7 million every month in the fight against poaching and illegal grazing in the parks.

Elsewhere, Taita Taveta County Commissioner Harun Khator has warned ranch managers against entering into lease agreements with strangers.

The commissioner said they had given them a three-month notice to submit the names of their tenants before a major operation to flush out illegal inhabitants.

“Soon we shall move in and take decisive action, which they might not be comfortable with,” he said.

Taita Taveta has 31 ranches, 26 of which are registered as group ranches and are leased out to herdsmen from northern Kenya.

The tenants have in turn hired “suspicious herds boys” who are said to be without identification documents.

The commissioner said those who will be allowed in the ranches must be Kenyans registered with the local security agencies.

This is after the KWS rangers arrested a suspected ivory dealer from a house in Miasenyi area with two of his alleged suppliers.

The suspect was found in possession of an AK47 rifle, two bullets and four empty magazines.

This brings to 11 the number of guns and 1,000 bullets seized from poachers this year.