Rangers kill 2 rogue elephants

2006-08-31 15:36

Nairobi - Kenyan wildlife rangers in choppers killed a pair of rogue elephants this week after a series of fatal attacks on people in incidents highlighting growing human-animal conflict, said officials on Thursday.

The officials said the rampaging bulls, blamed by locals for leading larger groups of jumbos onto farms to raid crops, were shot dead on Sunday and Wednesday near the famed Maasai Mara National Reserve and a ranch in central Kenya.

In addition, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said it was tracking a third elephant believed to have been involved in an attack on Monday in which one woman was killed.

An official said that on Wednesday, KWS rangers tracked down and killed an elephant suspected of three fatal attacks on humans, near the central town of Nanyuki, after it raided a ranch and injured a farmhand.

Seven women attacked

Deputy KWS warden for the area Richard Lemarikat said: "We had been tracking its movement for the last two years, but with the help of a helicopter we managed to bring it down yesterday.

"We have been monitoring it because we think it has killed three people in the last two years."

In a separate case on Monday in the nearby Aberdare forest, more than 10 elephants attacked a group of women collecting firewood, killing one of them and prompting authorities there to begin a hunt.

Jane Gitau, a KWS warden in Nyahururu, said: "About seven women were attacked. One was injured and she died on her way to hospital."

Officials said KWS rangers in helicopters on Sunday drove several large groups of elephants off farms on the outskirts of the Maasai Mara reserve during an operation in which they shot dead a bull believed to have killed a man that day.

Conflict between humans and wildlife, particularly elephants, was on the increase in Kenya as population pressures, drought and other weather conditions pushed farmers onto once unused land in many parts of the country.

- AFP