The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT), in conjunction with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) operate six Mobile Veterinary Units. Within the quarter, the Units attended to a total of 152 wildlife cases involving 222 animals.
During this reporting period, there were 64 poaching incidents and 20 human-wildlife conflict (HWC) cases. Of the poaching incidents, 28 involved elephants (12 arrowed, 11 spear, 3 snared and 2 bullet wound). There were also 20 snared plains game, 5 giraffes, 4 buffalo and 1 snared leopard as well as an eland, zebra and waterbuck treated for arrow wounds and 2 zebras with machete wounds. 3 elephants were speared, and another had a gunshot injury due to human-wildlife conflict. Several animals were relocated due to HWC including 3 buffalo, 1 waterbuck, 1 elephant, 1 lion and a rhino that strayed into community land.
The other cases attended to were mostly due to natural causes; 7 lions and 2 cheetahs were attended to for fight or hunting injuries as well as 13 elephants, 4 rhinos, 5 plains game and 2 giraffes for various ailments. The Units also assisted in the translocation of 31 antelope in Ol Pejeta Conservancy and ear notched 15 Black rhino in the Masai Mara National Reserve. Two elephant calves were also rescued after being found alone, 1 in Siana Conservancy and the other in Isiolo as well as 1 buffalo calf from Meru National Park.
Of the 152 cases attended to, 70% (107 cases) were successful or given a good prognosis and 9% (13 cases) were given a guarded prognosis. There were only 2 deaths due to poaching and 8 due to HWC whilst 18 animals died due to natural causes.