Kenya captures ivory worth millions as the battle against illegal ivory trafficking continues
Kenya intercepted ivory two containers of ivory worth 755, 000 dollars
The ivory comprised of 382 whole pieces and 62 cut pieces believed to have originated from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on its way to Malaysia. The consignment had been declared as 240 bags of groundnuts.
“Together with the ivory inside the container were unprocessed groundnuts in gunny bags. Two other containers are lined up for verification,” said Paul Mbugua, Kenya Wildlife Services spokesman on Tuesday in Nairobi.
An inter- agency collaboration between the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Kenya Ports Authority, Police and Kenya Revenue Authority enabled the authorities to intercept the containers.
This comes barely a month after Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta set ablaze 105 tonnes of Ivory at the Nairobi National Park.
The African Wildlife Foundation has trained sniffer dogs to sniff out illegal animal exports and is working with Kenya and Tanzania in airports and ports to combat the illegal trafficking.
“Since they started in January, the dogs have led 26 busts of ivory and other illegal wildlife products. At the end of March, sniffer dogs confirmed a large seizure of ivory in cargo transiting through Nairobi on its way to Bangkok from Mozambique. The ivory was worth more than $60,000. But the dogs are also detecting other illegal wildlife products, including more than 500 kilograms of pangolin scales in cargo at Nairobi’s international airport in March, and 16 lives turtles in May. This year, about 1,000 kilograms of pangolin scales have been seized.” Said VOA
The program will roll out to Mozambique and Uganda as well.
