2 arrested with 700kg ivory
27/04/2009 17:00 - (SA)



Nairobi - A senior Kenyan official says rangers and police have arrested two men who were transporting 700kg of elephant tusks in southern Kenya.

He says it is the largest seizure of illegal ivory in recent years.

George Osuri says Kenyan Wildlife Service rangers and police arrested the Kenyan man and a Tanzanian man on Saturday after inspecting their sports utility vehicle.

He said Monday that authorities found 33 whole elephants tusks and 57 pieces of tusks.

Osuri is the senior warden of Amboseli National Park, where the arrests were made. He says the elephants may have been poached in Kenya or Tanzania.

Poaching devastated Kenya's elephant population in the 1970s. But a 1989 global ban on the ivory trade has helped the population recoup.

- AP

And there was me thinking what devestated the Kenyan Elephant population in the early seventies was the Government's refusal to cull before/during the 1971 drought.

I guess Peter Beard must have got it all wrong in his book 'The End of the Game'

That old bastard, Daniel arap Moi was fully in bed with ivory poachers and was shipping poached ivory to the Far East on Kenya Airways. That had a great effect on Kenya's elephant population, as well.

Same ole thing. Who buys this ivory? Rhino horn? Bear gall bladders? We know. Cut off the snakes head and it dies. It takes no genius to figure that one out.
LDK

quote:

Same ole thing. Who buys this ivory? Rhino horn? Bear gall bladders? We know. Cut off the snakes head and it dies. It takes no genius to figure that one out.
LDK

Easier said than done! Look at the US and drugs.

quote:

Easier said than done! Look at the US and drugs

True Bwana1, but if we really wanted rid of drug dealers, we'd open season on them. Have a game show where known drug dealers photo's where posted on TV. Lucky contestants would draw tags and the next day they could legally shoot them on site. Of course we can't do that, we aren't Barbarian's anymore, and live in a kinder, gentler PC world. But it would be fun to watch the Roaches run for the hills now wouldn't it??? I bet we would have the fewest drug dealers of any country within 3 months...or less.
LDK

Ivory: 2 in Kenya plead guilty
27/04/2009 22:16 - (SA)


Nairobi - Two men pleaded guilty in a Kenyan court on Monday to illegally possessing 700kg of elephant tusks in what is believed to be the largest seizure of illegal ivory in recent years, a Kenyan official said.

The two were charged with illegal possession of ivory and failure to report their ivory stock, said George Osuri, the senior warden of Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya, where the seizure was made. They face up to one year in jail and a fine of up to 10 000 shillings ($125).

Rangers and police arrested the two - a Kenyan and a Tanzanian - on Saturday when the Kenya Wildlife Service acted on a tip about planned ivory smuggling, Osuri said. Ivory is illegal if is not from pre-1989 stockpiles or from an elephant shot by a ranger, for example for reasons of safety.

Officials stopped the two men in an SUV at a checkpoint in Mbirikani, about 50km from Tanzanian border, said Osuri.

When officials searched the car, they found 33 whole tusks and 57 pieces of tusk, he said.

Drastically reduced elephant population

"This is the biggest seizure in this area," Osuri told The Associated Press. He said no seizure this large had been made in the park since the late 1970s or early 1980s - the peak period for the poaching that has reduced Kenya's elephant population from 167 000 to about 27 000.

Osuri said the two men are members of a cartel the Wildlife Service has been monitoring since October.

He said the Wildlife Service was still investigating the origin of the ivory and its planned destination. He said much of the ivory seized looked old.

"The seizure will now bring to the limelight the magnitude of the poaching problem Kenya has been talking about all along," Osuri said.

Elizabeth Wamba, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said that, based on the weight of the tusks seized, at least 70 elephants had been killed.

The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species banned the ivory trade in 1989.

"What is more worrying is that this seizure is just indicative of what could have already been smuggled or getting through Kenya for another destination. Normally, what happens is a lot goes undetected," said Wamba.

- AP

quote:

They face up to one year in jail and a fine of up to 10 000 shillings ($125).

Who says crime doesn't pay? For every one they catch, how many get away with this? Maybe if Kenya offered legal hunting this would get severely curtailed???