Kenyan, Tanzanian poachers now gang up with Chinese criminals

Poaching, she said, contributed to the death of six of the elephants, while natural causes accounted for four deaths.

Further, the wildlife body says three of the deaths were due to human-wildlife conflict while KWS personnel killed one animal on problem animal-control.

However, the KWS has not arrested any of the poachers at Amboseli.

“We have not made any arrests yet, but our investigation team is on the ground,” said Mr Omondi.

However, he did not say how many of the tusks from the 18 elephants were recovered nor how deeply any Chinese nationals are involved.

Elephant Trust says some of the tusks were stolen; “Some of the individual [elephants] known to be dead have disappeared and we do not know if their tusks were taken,” says its report, which also claims that of the 18 elephant carcasses that its personnel recorded, the tusks of nine were taken by unknown people. “This is the first time ivory has been stolen from carcasses in Amboseli,” it adds.

In a telephone conversation with The EastAfrican, Ms Moss said, “We have information that some foreign nationals working in Kenya have been enticing local Maasai people to bring them ivory, bush meat and dogs.”

She further said that since her organisation did the report in January, one more elephant has been killed while three more have been speared.

On July 16 last year, the media reported that three Chinese men had been seized with illegal ivory at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at three different times.

The report said the suspects — Yu Zhong, Zhngle Chen and Liu Songlu — were also found with lion’s teeth, ivory bracelets and necklaces and later charged with illegal possession of government trophies at Makadara law courts in Nairobi.

Before that, on January 24, Customs officials at the same airport seized an assortment of ivory products weighing 83.5kg; on May 14, police at JKIA reportedly arrested two people who were in possession of elephant tusks weighing 110.5kg and valued at $6,400.

The Kenya Airports Authority also seized two pieces of raw ivory on July 13 last year. A newspaper report said the suspect had attempted to smuggle the ivory to China through Doha.

However, the seizures of ivory being smuggled out of the country have raised concerns over whether KWS is up to the job of protecting the country’s elephant population from poachers.

“If a population that is as well known and protected as the Amboseli elephants can be killed by poachers, one wonders what is happening to elephants in other Kenyan parks,” said a former head of the Born Free Foundation, Winnie Kiiru.

Talking to The EastAfrican from South Africa, Ms Kiiru said she feared that elephants in Tsavo, Meru and other national parks could be in even more danger because they are not as well protected as those in Amboseli.