A searing drought that has put millions of people across East Africa at risk of famine is threatening Kenya’s famed wildlife herds as they stray from protected areas to forage for scarce food and water, officials said on Wednesday.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said conditions in several of the country’s best-known parks and reserves were such that animals, mainly elephants, were increasingly coming into conflict with residents of nearby villages and farms, posing risks to both the human and fauna populations.
”We have put out an alert for increased human-wildlife conflicts in the country,” said KWS spokesperson Connie Maina. ”Wildlife, notably elephants, have left parks in search of water following the dry spell in the country.”
”We have deployed officers from the problem animal management unit to go to the affected areas and they are currently carrying out ground and aerial patrols with the view of controlling the problems,” she said.
Maina said the most-affected sanctuaries are the Tsavo National Park, made up of Tsavo East and West, in southeastern Kenya and the highly popular Maasai Mara National Reserve in the southwest, where hundreds of elephants are reported to have invaded neighbouring farms in search of food and water.
Officials said elephants had killed at least two people in the past two weeks around Tsavo, which is home to the largest number of the animals, and interrupted the funeral for one of the victims, prompting angry demonstrations from villagers.
”The priest had to cut short his speech after the elephants emerged and started charging at the mourners,” the state-run Kenya News Agency (KNA) reported on Wednesday, citing witnesses at the weekend burial of a septuagenarian cowherd, Haggai Kisombe, who was trampled to death while grazing his cattle.
”The besieged villagers resorted to shouting and blowing whistles forcing the beasts to retreat to the bush,” KNA reported, adding that the crowd had then turned nasty in demanding government action against the elephants, barricading a road and stoning cars for more than three hours. – Sapa-AFP