The Ministry of Tourism has rubbished reports circulating across social media that it is collaborating with the United Kingdom’s Kent Wildlife Park to relocated 13 jumbos to Kenya.
The Daily Mail, UK published an article on June 6, saying that “Carrie Johnson's charity will fly a herd of elephants from Kent Wildlife Park to Kenya in a 'world first' rewilding project.”
According to the Daily Mail article, The Aspinall Foundation announced that it will transport a total of 13 elephants - weighing 25 tonnes - more than 4,000 miles on a Boeing 747 to Kenya.
On Wednesday, the Kenyan government said that the relocation and rehabilitation of an animal from a zoo are not easy and will be an expensive affair.
“The Ministry wants to state that neither they nor the Kenya Wildlife Service KWS has been contacted nor consulted on this matter,” the statement read.
The article had also claimed that the elephants were to spend six months in observation after which they would be released into the wild to roam free as part of a project that is being run with the “Kenya Wildlife Service and the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.”
But in an opinion article that appeared in THE Sun newspaper on July 5, Carrie Johnson, who is the Director of communications for the conservation group said that the plans were underway.
She said that after almost eight centuries of the animals living there in captivity, they were planning to send the first herd of elephants back to the continent of Africa, specifically Kenya.
Carrie added that the elephants could be living in better conditions still after being relocated.
She also wrote that Kenya was a favourable country for the elephants with 56 years life span of elephants in Kenyan parks compared to17 years median life span of a captive elephant.
