Elephant tusks seized in Ethiopia returned to Kenya

NAIROBI (AFP) Oct 08, 2003
Ethiopia has returned to Kenya 37 elephant tusks seized from smugglers who were trying to export them illegally to the Far East, Kenyan wildlife authorities said Wednesday.

The tusks, weighing 145 kilogrammes (319 pounds), were intercepted while on transit through Ethiopia in April, the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) said in a statement.

Ethiopian officials handed over the tusks to KWS on Tuesday at the border town of Moyale.

KWS also said poachers killed a total of 54 elephants in the northern Kenyan districts of Marsabit, Laikipia, Isiolo and Samburu last year.

KWS said the poaching incidents and the attempted smuggling of the ivory had "reinforced the Kenyan government's opposition to the lifting of the ban on ivory trade."

Trade in ivory is banned under a treaty of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but in 2002, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were allowed to sell some 60 tonnes of their ivory stockpiles, a decision that angered Kenya.

TERRA.WIRE