ANOTHER RHINO KILLED WITHIN A DAY OF PRESIDENT KENYATTA’S WARNING TO POACHERS
(Posted 29th March 2014)
President Kenyatta’s stern warning on poaching during his State of the Nation address earlier in the week, and KWS’s attempts to fend off growing criticism about their way of handling the national poaching crisis – a crisis they try to portray as a challenge or sorts – have poachers struck again and killed yet another rhino inside the Nakuru National Park. ‘Honestly, if poachers can kill rhinos with such impunity like in Nairobi and Nakuru National Parks, and the latest just within a week or so of the last poaching incident, there must be something seriously wrong with KWS’ response and preparedness. They cannot be sincere when they say that they do all they can. If that is all let their top brass resign and make way for a breed of people who can formulate a tough response and protect our rhinos. This is complete shambles if in a highly protected park like Nakuru it happens again. Did they not just send some staff packing for redeployment and brought in new blood? Within their first week they also failed us, failed the nation and failed their sacred duty’ ranted a leading conservation source from Nairobi in a mail when reporting this latest incident of rhino poaching.
It was learned though from another source that the rangers were swift enough to react to the gunshots deep into the night on Thursday / Friday to prevent the poachers cut off the dead rhino’s horns, a small consolation though considering that the animal still ended up dead.
The minister responsible for Wildlife in the Kenyan government, one Prof. Judy Wakhungu lamented the fact of this latest killing, which brings, according to this correspondent’s own count, the Nakuru losses to 6 this year alone. ‘I find it lamentable too when the minister blames rising water levels and claims the rhinos are therefore made to move closer to the periphery of the park which makes it easier for poachers to kill them. What about perimeter security and patrols. If such circumstances are known KWS must deploy accordingly and strengthen their monitoring. Do they have night goggles to see from hideouts? Do they lay ambushes in areas they suspect are used to infiltrate the park. Let them no longer hide behind their operational secrecy walls but come out and openly say what it is they do. Is there field intelligence gathering in place to source tip offs from the communities around the park about poachers? What the hell is going on in Kenya these days’ did the first source continue to rant when asked about the minister’s apparent visit to the park yesterday.
In closing let me add that it is high time now for Kenya to hold a national dialogue between conservation NGO’s and KWS to lay open the true extent of poaching as there seem to be fundamental differences of opinion and of data interpretation between the official custodians of Kenya’s prized wildlife and conservation organizations.
In fact, Dr. Paula Kahumbu in a recent email exchange, discussing the present situation, pointed out that the Tsavo / Taita Hills / Mkomanzi elephant count, which established the loss, or migration away of some 1.500 elephant over the last three years, pointed out that for one the issue of migration is hard to accept for lack of migration spaces while at the same time speaking of over 800 carcasses of dead elephant identified, figures which would dwarf the official numbers KWS admits to.
A recent media briefing by Wildlife Direct, reported here which then raised some considerable debate – something which was intended – addressed pertinent issues and the KWS spokesperson Paul Udoto was clearly at a loss to articulate a response commensurate to the formidable opposition he encountered. KWS better not hide behind formalities and mandates or any other cooked up reasons and come to the table as a partner and not as a brake-shoe and openly discuss with the leaders of the conservation fraternity the way forward and how the private sector and NGO’s can be reeled into a common, agreed response to stem the tide and fight back.
Government though needs step up also and up the measly resource allocation to KWS – which is in a similar situation like the Kenya Tourism Board, also kept on a short leash due to a lack of resources – and put their money where their mouth is. Development partners and donors from around the world have expressed their support for anti-poaching operations and a joint approach, KWS on one side and the conservation NGO’s and fraternity on the other, may just convince those who hold the cheque books that indeed there is now a worthwhile and supportable cause where all parties pull into the same direction.
But that all said, the calls were made way back last year already for a national dialogue of the tourism sector, and one can easily see how that was received by the powers that be.
Watch this space for breaking and regular conservation news from the entire region.
