MARA POACHING ATTRIBUTED TO CROSS BORDER RAIDS
Overnight reports were confirmed that two more elephant had been poached near the common border with Tanzania, although the swift arrival of anti poaching rangers with tracker dogs forced the poachers to retreat towards, and more than likely across the border into the Serengeti, leaving the tusks behind. KWS rangers then removed the tusks and returned them to their park head quarters from where a coordinated search with their SENAPA (Serengeti National Park) counterparts was organized.
The Serengeti has been suffering of increased poaching in recent months and added patrols by air and on the ground there have likely driven some of the poachers across the border to try their luck there, as hot pursuit across the border is not permitted for KWS staff and vice versa for SENAPA staff, then depending on their colleagues to do the job for them.
Cooperation between the two ranger forces on the ground has been described as good, especially important to curtail poaching through the exchange of information and intelligence gathered from sources in neighbouring villages and settlements outside the parks.
Meanwhile has another seminar taken place in Kilgoris / Kenya, to educate the population on the migration patterns of elephant and other game, all of which are suffering of a shrinking habitat with farms coming up right to park boundaries at times. There have been growing demands from such villages to more swiftly compensate them for loss of crops due to animal raids, an issue high on the agenda if the human / wildlife conflict is to take a turn for the better.
