While 2020 isn’t the best year for humanity, wildlife seems to take advantage of it with the last news being great! The authorities in Kenya have recently announced the country’s elephant population has more than doubled, over the last three decades. The announcement was made during the World Elephant Day event.
With less than 16,000 elephants in 1989, Kenya Wildlife Service proudly announced that now over 34,000 individuals roam country’s wilderness. It all has been possible thanks to the government’s plan to eradicate poaching.
“In the last couple of years, we have managed to tame poaching in this country,” the minister of tourism, Najib Balala said at the event. He also announced further plans meant to support the rangers. “Today we are also launching the Magical Kenya elephant naming campaign, an annual festival whose objective will be to collect funds from the naming, to support the rangers, ” the minister also said. “This year alone, about 170 elephant calves have been born.”
With a smart plan and a very good strategy plan, Kenya has succeed in its attempt to save this iconic species. However, the fight is far from over as it takes a common effort from all African countries to eradicate poaching for good. Unfortunately since 1970, the elephant population in Africa has dropped by nearly 80%. If back than over 1.3 million elephants roamed the continent, now their number is less than 500,000. And only 30,000 of them live in the wild.
“It is fortunate that Kenya has a conservation and management strategy for elephants in place to guide elephant recovery strategies,” John Waweru, director at Kenya Wildlife Service said.” The elephants are one of the natural resources that have been caught up in human greed on one hand and human need on the other.”
(Featured image credits tobkatrina / Shutterstock)
