Kenya home to 4th largest savanna elephant population in the world

Elephants walk along the edge of one of the seasonal lakes on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park (365 kilometres southeast of the capital Nairobi) near Oloitiktok in Kajiado East County on August 12, 2020. /AFP/Getty Images.

Kenya has a total of 36,280 savanna elephants, the fourth largest population in the world after Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Tanzania respectively, the government said in a first-ever census report on wildlife released on Monday evening.

Elephants walk along the edge of one of the seasonal lakes on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park (365 kilometres southeast of the capital Nairobi) near Oloitiktok in Kajiado east county on August 12, 2020. /AFP/Getty Images.

The 2021 National Wildlife Census Report conducted by local experts established that the country is also home to 1,739 rhinos among them two northern white rhino species, 897 black rhinos and 840 southern white rhinos.

President Uhuru Kenyatta applauded Kenya’s wildlife conservation agencies led by the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) for successful anti-poaching efforts.

“The reduction in losses in terms of elephants, rhinos and other endangered species is because of the great work that KWS, its officers and men are doing to ensure that the (wildlife) heritage is protected,” he said in a statement released by the presidency.

He said the government was now better equipped to plan its wildlife conservation interventions and tasked the Ministry of Tourism to transform recommendations in the report into policies and programs. He also called for the adoption of the proposal to carry out the wildlife census every three years.

Cabinet Secretary of Ministry of Tourism Najib Balalasaid the government had made tremendous progress on the issue of poaching and was now moving toward resolving the human-wildlife conflict challenge which he said was not getting adequate global attention.

Xinhua