Friday, May 06, 2011

Kenyan police seize tusks of elephant heading to Nigeria

Police in Kenya seized the tusks of 58 elephants-totaling one ton of ivory — after sniffer dogs led investigators to containers at the country's main airport that were destined for Nigeria according to Kenyan poice on Friday.
Police officer in charge Joseph Ngisa, said no arrests had been made. It was not immediately clear why the ivory was being transported to Nigerian; the most common destination for smuggled ivory is Asia.
"We are suspecting they could be from here or neighboring countries and we are on their toes. We must get them. They have killed many, many elephants and we cannot allow this," said Eunice Kiheko, the deputy police chief in charge of all airports.
Patrick Omondi, an expert on elephants at the Kenya Wildlife Service, says illegal ivory smuggling in Africa increased after the 2007 temporary lifting of a ban by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. It allowed a one-off sale by countries that had stockpiles of ivory from elephants that had died naturally or problem elephants killed by wildlife officials.
In 2007, Kenya lost only 47 elephants to poaching, Omondi said. In 2008 — the year the sale took place— Kenya lost 145 elephants. In 2009, 271 elephants were killed and 187 were killed in 2010. Omondi said Kenya has already lost 87 elephants this year.

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