Fears of Ivory Poaching Climb after 5 Elephants Killed
10/2/97
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Fears of Ivory Poaching Climb after 5 Elephants Killed
Source: CNN
Date: 10/2/97
Copyright 1997: The Associated Press.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Poachers have killed five
elephants and hacked off their tusks in Kenya,
renewing fears that poaching will surge as a
worldwide ban on ivory trading is eased.
The five adult males were killed in early
September at Muge Ranch, a private reserve near
Nanyuki, 90 miles north of Nairobi, the Kenya
Wildlife Service said Thursday.
The U.N. wildlife convention eased a 7
1/2-year-old worldwide ban on ivory trade June 19,
voting to let three African nations make a
one-time sale of 59 tons of stockpiled elephant
tusks to Japan in 1999.
The decision -- opposed by Kenya -- was
immediately condemned by animal-rights activists,
who said it would spark renewed elephant
slaughters by poachers. They argued that any trade
would lead to poaching because of the difficulty
in ensuring illegal ivory is not mixed in with
legal shipments.
The slaughter of the five elephants -- the first
time ivory has been poached in Kenya this year --
alarmed Patrick Omondi, an elephant expert with
the wildlife service.
"We are very, very concerned about our elephants,"
Omondi said. "We are not sure what will happen to
them with the downgrading of elephant
protections."
Lindsey Gillson of Britain's Care for the Wild
said she was worried poachers would kill more
elephants for their ivory in anticipation of the
legal sale. "In the '70s and '80s there was a
quota for ivory sales, and that is when the worst
slaughter took place," she said. "It seems likely
that will happen again."
Elephant poaching dropped dramatically in Kenya
after the ban was imposed in 1989, the wildlife
service said.
Kenya's elephant population was 130,000 in 1970.
When poaching was at its height in the middle
1970s, poachers were killing an average of 19,000
elephants a year. Since the ban was imposed,
poaching has declined to an average of 34
elephants killed per year, and the herd is 26,000
strong.
Western countries strongly opposed lifting
restrictions on ivory, but some developing nations
say they have more elephants than their land can
support.