Kenyan authorities said on Friday they had arrested 14 suspected wildlife poachers, including seven Italians, and seized large amounts of ivory and other illegal animal trophies.
In three separate raids this month, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said its rangers had recovered more than 160kg of elephant tusks and processed ivory, along with rhino horns and large quantities of bush meat.
In the first operation on April 1, KWS officials arrested 12 people, six Italians and six Kenyans, in the town of Garsen near the Indian Ocean island of Lamu and seized two buffalo carcasses, hunting rifles and ammunition, it said.
On April 3, KWS arrested an Italian near the port of Mombasa and recovered a huge trove of illegal wildlife trophies, including 60kg of mounted ivory and three elephant tusks weighing 98kg, it said.
In addition, it recovered six ivory chopsticks, two rhino horns, a pair of eland horns, a pair of lesser Kudu horns, three rhino hooves, an elephant foot and a buffalo leg, KWS spokesperson Gichuki Kabukuru said in a statement.
On the same day, April 3, KWS rangers arrested a Tanzanian national with 5kg of ivory in the Kajiado district in Kenya’s central Rift Valley province, he said.
”Our rangers made the raids after receiving tip-offs from members of the public,” Kabukuru said, adding that all 14 suspects had been charged with illegal hunting and possession of trophies without a licence.
They have all pleaded not guilty, he said.
KWS deputy chief Peter Leitoro said the agency had stepped up surveillance on illegal poaching, which has risen in recent months.
”The strengthened security division of the KWS has enhanced operations aimed at curbing major illegal game-trophy and bush meat trade amongst other wildlife law-enforcement duties as a matter of top priority,” Leitoro said.
Trade in ivory is banned under a treaty of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Kenya banned all wildlife hunting in 1977.
Last month, the government blamed increasing incidents of poaching and illegal trade in bush meat in the country on a searing drought that has put millions of people across East Africa at risk of famine. — Sapa-AFP