At disposal of the wildlife activists are many local and international newspapers, TV and radios blogs and speaking opportunities here and overseas, which they use to maximum effect. Unsurprisingly, the world press plasters these poaching tales across their front pages and the story gains unstoppable momentum.
The irony is that the elite armchair conservationists’ tactics have ended up increasingly alienating communities who bear the brunt of human wildlife conflict through deaths, injuries or property destruction. The communities know that when they suffer losses, no such outpouring of sympathy to their plight is ever expressed.
The practice of self-serving mourning of wild animals took root in February when in an unprecedented incident in Kenya’s conservation history, an entire family of 11 adult elephants and one calf was slaughtered in Tsavo East National Park.
With hindsight, it seems the killing and massive international publicity that followed were carefully timed to coincide with the February 12-13, 2014 London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, where the Kenyan delegation was led by the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Prof Judi Wakhungu.
Barely four months later, another tragedy presented itself. An elephant found in Satao of Tsavo East National Park and believed to be Africa’s biggest elephant died after being attacked by poachers with poisoned arrows.
Several impeccable sources at KWS insisted that Satao is a true place name in northern Tsavo and indeed hosts great tuskers, but was not the name of the elephant. But some activists had to create the elephant and put him on a pedestal for fundraising.
Many deceitful NGOs fell over each other making Satao-themed merchandise, including T-shirts and bracelets, for sale as a way of fundraising to “provide 24/7 protection for the remaining great tuskers”. Fundraising dinners were held in various parts of the park in honour of Satao while thriving Facebook and Twitter accounts with links to donation platforms were created. KWS is yet to announce how much money, if any, from the Satao fundraising to support its operations.
The Tsavo Trust, an NGO which works in support of wildlife in Kenya, announced Satao’s death “with great sadness” for one of the “most iconic and well-loved tuskers”. On its Facebook page, the NGO wrote: “News of the death of Satao was a sad day for Kenya. It is devastating news for elephants and those who care about them.
We didn’t do enough for him, and we are failing his kind. The few iconic Tsavo bulls that remain deserve presidential protection.”
Richard Moller, of the Tsavo Trust, said: “There is no doubt that Satao is dead, killed by an ivory poacher’s poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far off countries … A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece.”
Paula Kahumbu of Wildlife Direct reported the death of Satao in a London Guardian newspaper blog: “It is 4 am and I have been sitting at my computer for hours. I just can’t sleep after hearing the terrible news that Satao, the world’s biggest elephant, is dead. Satao lived in Tsavo East National park in southeast Kenya and was celebrated as one of the last surviving great tuskers, bearers of genes that produce bull elephants with huge tusks reaching down to the ground.
“This news follows hard on the heels of the slaughter of another legendary tusker, Mountain Bull, deep inside the forests of Mt. Kenya. Of all the elephants that have died in Kenya, these deaths are the hardest to bear. The grief in Kenya at the slaughter of our iconic elephants is translating into floods of tears, emotional poems, and outrage on Twitter and Facebook.”
Kahumbu write-up exhibited a great sense of timing and occasion: “The appalling news of Satao’s death comes at a time when Kenya is preparing to showcase our conservation successes at the UNEP Governing Assembly which starts on 24 June. Instead Kenyan delegates will bear the heavy burden of conveying the news of the passing of this gentle, intelligent and compassionate giant.
“I call on Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, to set the tone for the Governing Assembly by starting with a minute’s silence: so that delegates can reflect on their duty of care towards our fellow beings, and in memory of Satao, Mountain Bull, and all the others who have died before them.”
The latest elephant to fall victim to the hugely talented conservation evangelists is a bull elephant named Tim whose larger than life profile is described in a blog as “one of the world’s biggest tuskers and his home is Amboseli”. It’s not clear who and how elephants in the wild are named.
Rather strangely, the Hands Off Our Elephants Campaign material was calling to “Keep Tim Alive” as early as August 9, 2014 during the World Elephant Day event in Nairobi. Three months later it was found injured in November 2014. It begs the question whether the hysterical internet-based publicity contributed to the elephant’s injury.
When reporting the death of Satao in a blog, British wildlife filmmaker Mark Deeble seems to confirm that publicity to individual wild animals could be counter-productive. “When I last wrote about Satao, I felt that I couldn’t use his name. I could refer to him only as a ‘magnificent tusker’ or an ‘iconic Tsavo bull’. I feared that naming him would risk revealing where he lived. Now that I can use it, I wish that that I couldn’t.”
Satao’s death came one month after the poaching of another iconic Kenyan elephant, Mountain Bull. Conservationists had reportedly gone to extreme measures to save the six-ton bull, going so far as to actually removing parts of his tusks and outfit him with a tracking device. But it was all for naught.
Two years ago in June 2012, the then KWS Director Julius Kipng’etich used the occasion of a farewell dinner in his honour in Nairobi National Park to accuse some unnamed NGOs of minting millions of dollars in the name of conserving wildlife in Kenya but had little to show for it. After a tumultuous eight-year stint at the helm of KWS, Kipng’etich termed the conduct of such NGOs as “betrayal of conservation” that was demoralising to dedicated KWS rangers who work in difficult circumstances at meager pay.
It’s probably in response to this stinging accusation that Ms Kahumbu, the Wildlife Direct Chief Executive, announced thus, “in minutes we have a plan to give the Kenyan Wildlife Service ($25,000) to monitor and protect Tim 24/7”.
Whether the donation was made or not, remains unclear. However, what’s more significant is whether KWS has a matter of new policy thrown its weight behind activists using injured and dead animals as tools for fundraising.
The bottom line is that Kenya’s wildlife is turning into a charade.
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