DSWT/KWS Quarterly Mobile Vet Report July to September 2017

Published on the 30th of October, 2017

During the July to September 2017 three-month reporting period, the Sheldrick Trust in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and their four dedicated KWS field veterinary officers, attended to 127 wildlife cases

During the July to September 2017 3-month reporting period, the DSWT in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service and their four dedicated KWS field veterinary officers, attended to 127 wildlife cases.

The prolonged drought witnessed this year, peaked throughout Kenya this quarter, but especially in the southern areas of Tsavo.  Due to a severe lack of vegetation and graze for wildlife, this drought has caused many wildlife deaths and necessitated the rescues of numerous elephant orphans.  Each Veterinary Unit did its upmost to save as many wild lives as possible during this period, and despite poor prognoses and outcomes for many cases, there have been some remarkable success stories. 

Of the 127 cases attended to 66 cases included elephants; 20 of these elephant cases were directly related to poaching activities with cases including 8 poisoned arrows, 10 spear cases and 2 snare cases, whilst there were also 14 elephant rescues, 1 collaring, 9 cases treated for natural causes and 22 post-mortems.  During this period 4 rhino cases were also attended to along with 15 lion cases.  A number of other species including giraffe, cheetah, zebra, buffalo, leopard and plains game were also treated by the veterinary units.

You can read about all of these cases in our Quarterly report here: