Elephants 'trampled crops, chased villagers'

Nairobi, Kenya

23 August 2004 14:12

Rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) over the weekend killed four elephants that had strayed from a national park and started destroying crops in villages in central Kenya, police and a KWS official said on Monday.

"Game rangers shot dead four elephants on Sunday in Ngarariga trading centre that we believe had strayed from Aberdares National Park," Kiambu district police commandant Atanasio Munyagia said by phone.

"One more was captured and KWS officers are planning to return it to the park," he added.

Munyasia explained that the five elephants, which had strayed from the park last week, destroyed crops, fences and other homestead structures in villages on their way, before KWS rangers arrived and shot them.

"Villagers reported that they either heard or saw the elephants in their villages as early as 5am [2am GMT on Sunday] when dogs started barking noisily and livestock ran away from their sheds," he added.

The elephants were mature as they appeared to weigh well more than six tons, he explained.

A KWS official confirmed the killing, saying authorities are planning to put up an electric fence around forests surrounding the Aberdares National Park.

"The elephants were shot dead after they turned violent, started trampling on crops, chasing villagers and destroying huts and any other structure in their sight," said the official, who did not want to be named. He was only aware of the death of three elephants.

The KWS official said plans are at an advanced stage to fence the park.

"That is the only way that can stop the animals from straying from the part and creating problems to the local population," he added.

Villagers feasted on the elephants' meat after rangers removed tusks, the Daily Nation newspaper reported.

The killing comes a few months after KWS authorities said they were working to reduce human-wildlife conflict. -- Sapa-AFP

Jumbos Killing Elicit Sharp Rebuke From Wardens

The East African Standard (Nairobi)

August 24, 2004
Posted to the web August 23, 2004

Nixon Ng'ang'a
Nairobi

Like with the rest of the country, Limuru residents may be under the grip of biting hunger and starvation but that hardly mitigates their savagery and plain greed subjected to three rogue elephants last Sunday.

The human hounds decided not to wait for the carcass. By the time the elephants breathed their last, little of their bodies had any flesh on them.


Besides the villagers' act, the treatment of the elephants that had strayed from the Aberdares is being blamed on police officers who killed them.

"They did not have the right guns for the job. What they used were a low calibre automatic guns lacking the requisite firepower to kill elephants with minimum pain," says a senior warden with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

Rapacious villagers had cruelly parceled out chunks of meat into polythene bags from whatever quarter their knives and pangas could cut from creatures still resisting death from a hail of police bullets.

A man shouldered away the giant tail he had hacked off from a still-breathing elephant; a middle-aged woman, resolutely unmoved by the painful whimpers and pitiable movements of an elephant's eyes, filled her bag with a bloody steak. It was a macabre feast that would send the average animal rights crusader into prolonged mourning.

There is no gainsaying the dangers and the damage rogue elephants can visit on a community. This notwithstanding, there must surely be a civilised, humane and dignified way of dealing with their menace unlike what villagers of Kinyogoori, Ngarariga and Gitogothi did.

According to the KWS officer, the Wildlife Management Act clearly stipulates the range of guns for hunting/killing wildlife.

He says: "Cap 376 is explicit. You can only use long rifles and other heavy calibre guns such as .303, .306 and .458. The intention is to have a powerful gun that can kill with a single shot. You don't use G-3 and other automatic guns."

He blames Sunday's scenes where officers kept pumping bullets into elephants that apparently "refused" to die on "weak" bullets adding it was disagreeably cruel and should have never been allowed.

He sees the ill-executed killing as further evidence of the lean financial times at KWS. He adds, however, that there is actually no legislation criminalising consumption of game that dies from causes other than poaching.

Aides: Our true hope for Africa. This kind of crap makes me really want to go hunting, but not for elephants...

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