At the beginning of the quarter, much of Kenya was still dry though there was enough water and food to sustain wildlife. The onset of the rains began in November and much of Kenya underwent a remarkable transformation with permanent and seasonal rivers flowing, overflowing water pans and plenty of vegetation for wildlife. For this reason, the majority of the cases were handled in October, with case numbers declining, particularly for Human – Wildlife Conflict and Poaching towards the end of the year.

During this reporting period, there were 41 poaching incidents and 14 human-wildlife conflict cases. Of the poaching incidents, 23 involved elephants (13 arrowed, 7 spear, 2 snared and 1 bullet wound). There were also 5 snared plains game, 7 giraffes, 1 buffalo and 1 hyena, 1 rhino with a bullet wound, a giraffe with a spear wound and 2 with arrow wounds. Sadly 10 animals in 6 separate cases lost their lives to HWC. These included several hyenas and a lion which were poisoned after preying on livestock, a speared lion and an elephant, a zebra injured by fencing and the death of a black rhino that ingested a plastic bag. However, the Unit were able to successfully relocate 3 buffalo that were a danger to humans and treat an elephant injured by a spear possibly during a crop raiding incident.

To reduce the elephant population at Mwea National Reserve which had exceeded the carrying capacity of the reserve, the Mt Kenya Unit participated in translocating 55 elephants from Mwea to Aberdare’s NP.