Eleven adults and one infant calf died in a targeted and efficient attack highlighting the growing professionalism of poachers bankrolled by international criminals supplying soaring demand for ivory in the . The calf, less than a year old, is believed to have been crushed by its dying mother as she fell to the ground.
It is unimaginable, a heinous, heinous crime, said Paul Udoto, spokesman for the(KWS). We have not seen such an incident in recent memory, its the worst single loss that we have on record, and our records go back almost 30 years. These were professional killers. The attack was targeted and efficient.
Recommended:The poachers, armed with automatic rifles, had already fled but there were hopes Tuesday that a massive search involving foot patrols, a dozen vehicles, and three aircraft could still find them.
Every possible resource is being deployed to track down these criminals, Mr. Udoto said. They will feel the full force of the law.
But privately, conservations fear the poachers and their haul of 22 tusks, worth an estimated $281,000 on the Asian market, would already have escaped following the attack, which occurred late Saturday in a remote corner of Tsavo East National Park, Kenyas largest wildlife reserve.
This was the latest in a surge of elephant deaths that has seen the number of the animals killed for their ivory in Kenya increase sevenfold in five years, from fewer than 50 in 2007 to 360 in 2012, according to KWS figures. Over the past six weeks, 20 elephants have been found dead, with their tusks hacked out, in the Samburu ecosystem of northern Kenya alone. Three females were killed close to thein October.Experts speculate that many more are killed in the wilderness and their carcasses never found.
The increase has led many wildlife experts to declare the current situation a crisis worse even than the mass slaughter of 's elephants in the 1970s and 1980s, which led to a global ivory trade ban in 1989.
Now the situation is far graver, because we have fewer elephants left, but the demand for ivory is far greater," says Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save The Elephants. The only thing that will radically alter the situation now is somehow to lower that demand.
Two average 10-lb. tusks from an adult female elephant are now worth more than $20,000 in , close to double their value a decade ago. The new demand is driven by the countrys booming middle class, for whom carved ivory and tusk trinkets are a sign of wealth.
Occasional one-off sales to China andof stockpiled ivory from , most recently in 2008, are also blamed for restarting a market that had been dormant since the trade was banned.
In the past year, several Chinese celebrities, including formerplayer , have . And dozens of African religious leaders .
"Africa has a half-million elephants left, but all together we know they are not enough to satisfy the demand for their ivory," adds Udoto, of the KWS. "We must all pull in one direction to stop that demand."
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