Kenya relocates 50 elephants to new park to tackle overpopulation
Kenya has embarked on an ambitious conservation project to address elephant overpopulation in the Mwea National Reserve. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is relocating 50 elephants from the 42-square-kilometre Mwea to the more spacious 760-square-kilometre Aberdare National Park.
This move comes as Mwea's elephant population has surged from 49 in 1979 to 156 today, far exceeding the reserve's ideal capacity of 47. Rebecca Miano, Kenya's cabinet secretary for tourism and wildlife, stated that the relocation aims to improve human-wildlife coexistence and mitigate environmental degradation.
The elephants are being moved in family groups, with one member from each group fitted with a tracking device for two-year monitoring. As of Tuesday, 44 elephants had been successfully transferred, with the remaining six scheduled for relocation by week's end.
This initiative highlights the success of Kenya's conservation efforts over the past three decades. The country's elephant population, which plummeted from 170,000 to 16,000 between 1979 and 1989 due to poaching, has rebounded to 36,280 as of 2021.
The relocation project demonstrates Kenya's commitment to wildlife conservation while balancing ecological needs and human-wildlife conflict mitigation.
Source: China Daily
