638 illegal elephant tusks confiscated
2013-01-16 21:28
Mombasa - Custom officials seized 638 pieces of illegal
elephant ivory estimated to be worth $1.2m at Kenya's main port, evidence of
what wildlife officials described on Wednesday as a growing threat to East
Africa's elephants.
The ivory was in a container destined for Indonesia and
was discovered late on Tuesday, said Gitau Gitau, the Kenya Revenue Authority
officer in charge of the port.
Gitau said the tusks were from Tanzania. Documents said
the container was carrying slabs of decorative stones,
The seizure comes about a week after 12 elephants were
killed in a Kenyan park and their tusks chopped off.
Elephant poaching is on the rise across Africa because of
increased demand from Asia - particularly from China - for ivory trinkets.
Poor African villagers can earn vast sums for killing an
elephant and taking its tusks.
Kenyan officials became suspicious of the container
because shipping documents used similar descriptions and details as a shipping
container full of ivory seized in Hong Kong earlier this month. That seizure,
the third big seizure of ivory in three months, found more than a ton of
elephant tusks worth $1.4m.
Customs officers seized 779 pieces of ivory weighing
1 323kg.
Kenya Wildlife Officials said on Wednesday that Kenya
last year lost 384 elephants and 19 rhinos to poaching compared with 289
elephants and 29 rhinos poached in year 2011.
The Kenya Wildlife Service arrested 1 949 poaching
suspects last year.
"There has been a gradual escalation in elephant and
rhino poaching since 2005... influenced by escalation in the black market
prices," said Kenya Wildlife Service spokesperson Paul Mbugua.
- AP
