Poaching of jumbos, rhinos in decline, state data shows

Poaching of iconic species such as elephants and rhinos has significantly declined in the last three years.

Statistics from the Tourism ministry show that 80 elephants were killed by poachers in 2017. The number decreased to 38 in 2018.

Last year, 38 elephants were killed by poachers. So far, seven elephants have been killed this year.

Tourism CS Najib Balala attributed the decline to a lot of work that has gone into anti-poaching strategies.

“I joined the ministry in January 2018 before putting strict strategies into protecting the endangered species,” Balala told the Star.

In 2017, 10 rhinos were killed and another four in 2018. In 2019, four other rhinos were killed. No rhino has been killed this year.

Balala said the declining trends show success of the efforts the government has put in place to protect the country’s national heritage.

A report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows that Nigeria has overtaken the port of Mombasa in its role as a primary source of illicit shipments of wildlife products.

The report, Wildlife Crime 2020, shows a dramatic reorientation in the routing of ivory.

“While East Africa (particularly Mombasa, Kenya) was the primary source of illicit shipments in the past, Nigeria has become a dominant collection and transit point over the last four years,” the report says.

While China dominated in the past, Vietnam has emerged as the primary destination of these shipments.

Large mixed shipments of ivory and pangolin scales have risen in prominence, suggesting experienced ivory traffickers are using their expertise to move a rising amount of illicit commodities.

The report says there were 8,193 seizures in 2015, 17,881 in 2016, 20, 762 in 2017 and 520 in 2018.

“Between 2014 and 2018, seizures of pangolin scales increased tenfold. The reasons for this increase are unclear,” the report says.

The report was launched in Vienna, Austria, July 10.

It draws heavily on United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s database, which contains almost 180,000 seizures from 149 countries and territories.

The database shows that nearly 6,000 species were seized between 1999-2019, including not only mammals but also reptiles, corals, birds and fish.

The report says reptile species are primarily traded for décor or fashion,  food, tonics, medicine and for the pets trade and breeding.

Between 2010 and 2018, some 157,000 elephants in Africa were poached before their ivory were hacked and sneaked to Asian countries.

This is an average of about 17,000 elephants per year.

The trend of poaching has, however, declined over time according to the Wildlife Crime 2020 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Data on poaching and trafficking indicate that the ivory supply saw resurgence around 2007 and grew steadily until around 2011, declining until 2016, and stabilising at much lower levels in the following two years.

Prices for ivory in both East Africa and Asia appeared to have risen from 2007, peaked around 2014 and declined dramatically in the following years.

The report says rhino poaching appears to have risen from 2007, peaked in 2015 and declined every year since that time.

“Stopping the trafficking in wildlife species is a critical step not just to protect biodiversity and the rule of law, but also to help prevent future public health emergencies,” it says.

Following vigorous public campaigns, in January 2018 Hong Kong’s lawmakers voted to ban the trade, phasing it out by 2021. But in Japan and other parts of Asia, it’s still legal.

In 2018, local conservation NGO Save the Elephants published a report showing that much of the African ivory that reaches Myanmar is smuggled in containers to Vietnam. The ivory is transported up the Mekong River through the  Golden Triangle region into the east of the country on the border with China to meet Chinese demand.

Edited by Henry Makori