Kenya relocates 150 elephants
2006-09-13 21:59
Nairobi - The Kenya Wildlife Service has begun moving 150 elephants to its largest national park from a smaller reserve because of overcrowding with rhinos, said a spokesperson on Wednesday.
The first 40 elephants, comprising five families, were tranquillised and moved by truck earlier this week under the $14 000 (about R103 000) programme.
The remaining elephants were to be moved by Friday.
Patrick Omondi, head of the service's elephant programme, said: "We need to protect the rhinos and allow them space so that their numbers can grow."
The elephants, each weighing about 7 000kg, are being moved 80km by road from the Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary, 300km east of the capital Nairobi, he said.
Kenya only has 539 rhinos countrywide.
About 70 are in the Ngulia sanctuary although scare water and forage is threatening their numbers, said Omondi.
Suffered its heaviest loss
On September 25 the wildlife service will begin relocating 250 elephants to Tsavo National Park from the smaller Shimba Hills National Reserve, about 350km away under a separate $300 000 (about R2.2m) programme. Shimba is overcrowded.
Elephant numbers in Kenya are estimated at 35 000, down from a peak of 167 000 in the 1970s.
Tsavo suffered its heaviest loss of elephants during the 1980s and early 1990s because of poaching.
Poaching has since subsided, helped by a 1989 global ban on the ivory trade that has seen prices drop.
- AP