SWT/KWS Quarterly Mobile Vet Report January to March 2020

Published on the 15th of April, 2020

During the January – March 2020, 3-month reporting period, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT) in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and their five dedicated field veterinary officers, attended to 86 wildlife cases, 35 of which included elephants.

Of the 86 cases attended to, 19 cases were directly related to poaching. Of the poaching cases, 9 involved elephants; 4 poisoned arrows, 2 spear cases, and 3 snaring cases. There were also 2 human-elephant conflict cases involving an elephant that died from suspected poisoning and 2 elephants that broke out of Chyulu National Park near Kibwezi town; one elephant was successfully relocated, the other escaped. Other elephant cases included 8 treatments for natural causes, 13 post-mortems where cause of death was assumed to be natural, and 3 rescues.

Non-elephant cases attended to involved 10 poaching incidents, all of which involved snared animals. There were also 8 human-wildlife conflict cases involving 26 animals, including 21 vultures that died after eating a poisoned carcass. There were also 8 post-mortems assumed to be natural, 15 cases for natural causes, 1 rescue, 5 technical cases, and 4 relocations.