Kenya: Wildlife trophies seized
08/09/2006 18:57 - (SA)



Nairobi - Kenyan police seized a huge cache of illegal wildlife trophies, including elephant tusks, ivory and stuffed rare animals, in a raid on the home of a former honorary game warden, said officials on Friday.

"Police and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officers confiscated the items, believed to be worth at least tens of thousands of dollars on Thursday from the residence in Nairobi's upscale Westlands neighbourhood."

The haul included four elephant tusks, five ivory carvings, two full-mounted leopards and several full-mounted buffalo, eland, kudu, Grant's gazelle and topi heads, all of which were displayed as home decorations, said officials.

The raid, launched after a tip from a private citizen, comes as Kenya intensifies efforts to crack down on poaching and illegal wildlife trade in a bid to protect its lucrative safari tourism sector.

Although KWS officials said the seized items appeared to pre-date Kenya's 1977 ban on game hunting, they stressed the law had also revoked all trophy licenses and required the owners of such material to turn them in.

Released on bail

"Some people have failed to surrender their trophies and have continued to illegally keep them without permits," said KWS spokesperson Paul Udoto.

"Poachers have used this as a window for illegal game hunting."

The owner of the items, a Nairobi businessman who was once an honorary KWS warden, claimed to have had a permit for the trophies, but could not produce it and maintained he was unaware of the order to return them, said police.

He was released on bail due to his past affiliation with the wildlife service but authorities said they would continue to stage such raids and prosecute offenders, urging citizens to report sittings of illegal trophies.

"We call on the public to come out with information on people who are in possession of illegal game trophies," said KWS.

This is sickening.

Not only do the misguided nitwits ban hunting, but they even ban the keeping of trophies hunted prior to the imposition of the ban?

God save us from these morons.

Big Brother has shown up in kenya I see.

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
This is sickening.

Not only do the misguided nitwits ban hunting, but they even ban the keeping of trophies hunted prior to the imposition of the ban?

God save us from these morons.

DITTO.

I didn't even want to look at this post because one usually knows what it about. It is not bad enough that this guy has to suffer idiots, but self-rightous ones to boot.

Black logic? It is astoundingly crude.

quote:

The raid, launched after a tip from a private citizen

This kind of behaviour reminds me of Nazi Germany, where nabours turned in nabours to the Gestapo, and makes the whole incident even more disgusting...

I'm sure a lot of us here are considered knowledgeable about Africa by our friends, aquaintances, clients etc and are asked advice about where to visit for touristing about, game viewing etc.

I won't be recommending Kenya to anyone.

mike

Why would anyone be surprised at this? Kenya's political and hunting history has been on a downhill slide ever since the late 40's and early 50's. Robert Ruark accurately predicted the political future of all of Africa when he wrote his two, part-fictional(mostly factual) novels entitled: "Something Of Value" and "Uhuru", specifically about Kenya. What you have seen happen in Kenya over the years has also moved on down the continent to every country, to a greater or to a lesser degree. The anti-colonial, anti-white and anti-hunting sentiment that we see today is, in part, all based upon Kenya's own experience. Moreover, as another example, Kenya was active in trying to initially ban all African lion hunting over the past two years in Cites meetings held regarding that very subject. Look at their attitude about elephants and people. Who or what's more important? Not hard to guess that answer either. The fact that you cannot now even possess prior hunting trophies that were taken prior to the hunting ban should not surprise anyone. The "nose of the camel has been under the tent" in all of Africa for many years, and the camel is coming in. Don't expect any significant reversals in favor of hunting for any of us as time goes on in any African country. Fight for it where and when you can, but enjoy it while it is still affordable and/or available. As a reminder, we have all experienced more negative than positive changes in the political climates in nearly every country that we hunt in in Africa; we have experienced changes regarding tighter hunting and firearms regulations, be it with gun permits, new proposed regulations regarding the African hunting industry, closures on hunting in certain areas, rampant poaching, the taking of farms and hunting concessions by force or without reasonable and just compensation, new regulations on so called canned hunts, new proposed regulations regarding hunting methods, or on raising of non-indigenous wild game on game ranches, etc. The list just goes on and on. Kenya, in my opinion, is just an unfortunate predictor of the long term future.