Participants

Henry Lekochere –team leader Sylvester Matheka John Mungai Abdi Adan Boru Okicha Gerald Maghanga 2 KWS rangers

Area Covered

During the month of December we carried out patrols at the Lumo wildlife sanctuary, Maktau, Oza ranch and the Mzima water pipeline.

TOTAL SNARES COLLECTED 60 ARRESTS 1

Findings

The month’s patrols began at the Lumo Wildlife Sanctuary where we carried out our desnaring activities for a period of 3 days. In the past months the area has yielded many snares however in contrast no poaching activities were noticed this month. We visited all the areas where we usually recover snares but thankfully none were found. Sadly we did come across a dead female elephant that had died of natural causes.

Her tusks were still intact, another indication that she died of natural causes, and we therefore removed the tusks and handed them over to KWS.

At Maktau and Oza ranch we saw a high level of poaching taking place. The area yielded many snares as well as snared animals. We found a dead lesser kudu still in the snare and found drying lines containing bush meat.

We lay an ambush over a period of 2 days but no arrests were made. We lifted 54 snares 49 of which targeted medium sized game.

No major poaching activities were noticed during our patrols at the Mzima water pipeline. As the area has a lot of thick vegetation, we carried out a thorough check of the main dry riverbeds, which have previously been a poaching hotspot. Thankfully there was not indication of any recent poaching activities taking place.

During our desnaring operations at Kishushe we arrested one poacher who was in possession of bush meat and 6 snares.

The poacher was booked at Taveta police station where he is awaiting sentencing.

Report by Henry Lekochere