Wildlife success in Kenya

2008-02-04 10:00

Mombasa, Kenya - Kenya's population of elephants - both a tourism drive and a measure of the state of the East African country's wildlife - is increasing, after successful anti-poaching measures and bans on the illegal ivory trade, wildlife officials said.

In Tsavo, Africa's second-largest game reserve, 11 700 elephants were recorded during a five-day aerial census, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service, representing growth of more than four percent on the previous count three years ago.

"The elephant is Kenya's flagship species, and so its distribution and condition is a good indicator of the status of our wildlife," the agency's director, Julius Kipngetich, said on Friday.

Since 1991, when some 6 800 were recorded in Tsavo, Kenya's largest protected area, there has been a gradual increase in elephants.

"The growth rate (in elephant numbers) has been consistent. Carcass rates have dropped significantly" because of strong park security, Kipngetich said.

The larger Tsavo, which includes a swath of Tanzania across the southern Kenyan border, has more than a third of Kenya's estimated 30 000 elephants. It is Africa's second largest reserve, after Kruger National Park in South Africa.

The growth in the number of tuskers should be good news for the tourism industry, with a million visitors spending more than $580m annually to see elephants and other wildlife on the country's savannas.

Successful measures

But ongoing ethnic violence, which has killed more than 800 people since the December 27 disputed presidential election, could offset some of the trade. The United States has warned tourists against all but essential travel to Kenya, and Britain has warned against visiting some areas in the country.

Last week, Kenya's leading tourism agency declared western parts "off-limits" to foreign visitors, saying they should avoid about a dozen areas in the region because of "sporadic incidents of civil unrest in recent weeks".

The elephant census, at a cost of 10 million Kenyan shillings, involved 11 light aircraft and about 70 conservationists and volunteers who covered Tsavo West National Park and the outlying areas of Tsavo East, Mkomazi in Tanzania, Chyullu Hills and private ranges in Taita Taveta.

The count last month was part of a global elephant monitoring system included in the 173-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that monitors wildlife. It also helps conservationists plan management and security in protected areas.

In June, the convention imposed a nine-year freeze on ivory trade after a one-off sale of 60 tons of government owned stocks to Japan by four Southern African states; Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Patrick Omondi, from the biodiversity and research division of the wildlife agency, said bans and wildlife protection measures had been successful.

"The (elephant) population has grown as a result of a global ban on ivory trade that was effected in 1989, and effective anti-poaching operations by the (wildlife) agency," Omondi said.

- AP