Kenya’s elephant population has doubled in the last three decades, in part due to a collapse of poachers and ivory smugglers, authorities announced at an event marking World Elephant Day on Wednesday.
Between 1989 and 2019, Kenya’s population of African elephants grew from about 16,000 to more than 34,000, according to John Waweru, director of Kenya’s Wildlife Service.
“In the last few years, we have managed to curb strife in this country,” Kenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala said at the same event, Reuters reported.
Amid a global coronavirus pandemic that has hampered travel and shut down economies around the world, there were just seven elephants in Kenya this year, down from 34 in 2019 and 80 the year before, according to the report.
The Kenyan government has imposed longer prison sentences, and greater fines for poachers and smugglers as part of its collapse on the ivory trade.
FUGITIVE WANTED IN US FOR ALLEGED IVORY, RHINO HORN TRAFFICKING ARRESTED IN KENYA
Elephant bull running in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya.
Last month, Kenyan authorities announced that the arrest of a suspected stinger was guilty of killing at least 100 elephants and 35 rhinos. He is expected to be extradited to the US in connection with a $ 7 million smuggling investigation.
And to further discourage trade, government officials in Kenya, the US and other countries have destroyed tons of seized ivory uprising, valued at more than $ 100 million, by burning or burning it in public.
Elephants, whose ivory is highly valued in illegal markets, are also known to rob crops and sometimes injure or even kill people, prompting the government to offer compensation to farmers who have been harmed, according to the Kenyan government.
CALIFORNIA ZOO SUEDE OF ALL USE BANNED PRODS ON ELEPHANTS, ENDINGERING ZOOKEEPERS
But strife grew less in the 2000s as demand for the black market for ivory increased in parts of Asia, including China. It spiked between 2011 and 2014, and estimates for the entire African elephant population dipped below 420,000, according to authorities. That’s down from an estimated $ 10 million in 1930, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
African elephants are the largest land animals on the planet and generally live in the central and southern regions of the continent, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).
Their teeth have long been considered trophies for their ivory, which is used for jewelry and jewelry. But they are also being killed for meat and in compensation for damage to crops other than human property, which the government calls ‘human-elephant conflict’.
“The elephants are one of the natural resources that are, on the one hand, captured in human greed and human need,” Waweru said. “So there we have a dichotomy.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The United States enacted its African Elephant Conservation Act in 1988, authorizing millions of dollars in aid to help animals that have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since the late 1970s.
