. Earth Science News .
Kenyan Rangers Kill Rogue Jumbos After Fatal Human Attacks

Conflict between humans and wildlife, particularly elephants, is on the increase in Kenya as population pressures, drought and other weather conditions push farmers onto once unused land in many parts of the country.
by Staff Writers
Nairobi (AFP) Aug 31, 2006
Kenyan wildlife rangers in choppers killed a pair of rogue elephants this week after a series of fatal attacks on people in incidents highlighting growing human-animal conflict, officials said Thursday.

The rampaging bulls, blamed by locals for leading larger groups of jumbos onto farms to raid crops, were shot dead on Sunday and Wednesday near the famed Maasai Mara National Reserve and a ranch in central Kenya, the officials said.

In addition, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said it was tracking a third elephant believed to have been involved in an attack Monday in which one woman was killed.

On Wednesday, KWS rangers tracked down and killed an elephant suspected of three fatal attacks on humans near the central town of Nanyuki after it raided a ranch and injured a farmhand, an official said.

"We had been tracking its movement for the last two years, but with the help of a helicopter we managed to bring it down yesterday," said the deputy KWS warden for the area, Richard Lemarikat.

"We have been monitoring it because we think it has killed three people in the last two years," he told AFP from Nanyuki, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Nairobi.

In a separate incident Monday in the nearby Aberdare forest, more than 10 elephants attacked a group of women collecting firewood, killing one of them and prompting authorities there to begin a hunt.

"About seven women were attacked," Jane Gitau, a KWS warden in the town of Nyahururu adjacent to the forest, told AFP. "One was injured and she died on her way to hospital."

Meanwhile, KWS rangers in helicopters on Sunday drove several large groups of elephants off farms on the outskirts of the Maasai Mara reserve during an operation in which they shot dead a bull believed to have killed a man that day, officials said.

Conflict between humans and wildlife, particularly elephants, is on the increase in Kenya as population pressures, drought and other weather conditions push farmers onto once unused land in many parts of the country.

Elephants stroll into Sumatran city
Meanwhile, two wild elephants, suspected of fleeing forest fires in jungle clad Sumatra island, strolled Thursday into a busy Indonesian city and started rummaging for food, officials said.

The pair of pachyderms were found calmly munching on trees and bushes on the outskirts of Pekanbaru, a provincial capital on Sumatra island, police said.

"The two elephants, both male, are currently in a plot of land in a residential area," said a local policeman who identified himself only as Duplis.

Forestry officials said the wild elephants may having been escaping land clearing in Riau province, where forest fires have been raging for several weeks.

"They might have been driven out of their habitat because of the fires. For the moment we will just keep them safe there until a decision is taken," said Uus Suherna, a forest warden at the Nature Conservancy Office.

He declined to say where the elephants might have come from, but his colleague Nukman suggested they could have come from the nearby Minas forestry park.

Riau has been one of the provinces in Sumatra island worst hit by ground and forest fires which have sent thick haze into the sky in the area in the past weeks.

The fires, an annual hazzard, are mostly blamed on plantation and estate owners using fire to clear land for the next crop.

Suherna said that forest wardens had been sent to the site "to see what could be done, how we can get them to leave the city and go back into the forests."

Police had been deployed to the site to keep the curious at bay for fear that the elephants might be frightened and run amok, Duplis said.

The World Wildlife Fund conservation group said in April that elephants in Sumatra, the only Indonesian island where they are found, were dying at an alarming pace with numbers dropping by 75 percent in just 18 years.

As of 2003, only about 354 to 431 elephants remained, the group said.

The natural habitat of elephants is being increasingly taken over by resettlement, plantations and industrial forest estates, they said.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Related Links
Darwin Today At TerraDaily.com

NASA Study Solves Ocean Plant Mystery
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 01, 2006
A NASA-sponsored study shows that by using a new technique, scientists can determine what limits the growth of ocean algae, or phytoplankton, and how this affects Earth's climate.







  • China To Build Earthquake Warning System At Three Gorges Reservoir Area
  • Interview: Katrina Lessons Learned
  • Katrina Response A 'Systemic Failure': Former US Emergency Response Chief
  • Engineers Find New Way To Close Levees

  • Iron Critical To Ocean Productivity And Carbon Uptake
  • Prevention Vital Against Desertification
  • More Carbon Dioxide May Help Some Trees Weather Ice Storms
  • Study Breaks Ice On Ancient Arctic Thaw

  • Renewed Volcanic Activity At The Phlegrean Fields Tracked By Envisat
  • China To Launch 1st Environment Monitoring Satellite
  • NG Demonstrates Synthetic Aperture Laser Radar for Tactical Imagery
  • MODIS Images Western Wildfires

  • Protesters Aim To Shut Down British Power Station
  • Schwarzenegger Caps Greenhouse-Gas Emissions In California
  • Crude Oil Rebounds On Iran Jitters
  • Turning Fuel Ethanol Into Beverage Alcohol

  • Is The Cure In The Blood For Bird Flu
  • HIV Life Expectancy Now Normal
  • Analysis: Time To Quit On AIDS Vaccine
  • Fear Of Human Spread Of Bird Flu Lessens

  • Kenyan Rangers Kill Rogue Jumbos After Fatal Human Attacks
  • NASA Study Solves Ocean Plant Mystery
  • Chimpanzees Can Transmit Cultural Behavior to Multiple Generations
  • The Ammonia-Oxidizing Gene

  • Residents Flee Toxic Chemicals As Japan Finds Sunken Oil Tanker
  • Early-Warning Water Security System To Be Tested
  • China Making Little Progress On Pollution: Legislature
  • Lebanese Fishermen Crippled By Wartime Oil Spill

  • Snakes Credited For Our Keen Vision
  • Ancient Raptors Likely Feasted On Early Man
  • Remote Island Provides Clues On Population Growth, Environmental Degradation
  • Human Brain Filing System Uncovered

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement