Rhino Poaching (outside SA) & Horn Trafficking

[Sprocky]

2014-01-24 05:30

Nairobi - Africa is getting tougher in its fight against poaching. New laws with stiff penalties, more military training for rangers and new technology like drones with thermal cameras are all helping to protect rhino and elephant. A new law in Kenya that increases penalties for killing tourist-attracting safari animals is already bearing fruit.

A Chinese man accused of trying to smuggle ivory in a suitcase was arraigned in a Nairobi court this week. Under the law that came into effect on 10 January and that the Kenya Wildlife Service had been lobbying for for years, the man could face up to life in prison and a $230 000 fine. In the past, such poachers and smugglers could walk out of court with a fine of less than $1 000.

"They have to think twice now," Paul Mbugua, the spokesperson for the Kenya Wildlife Service, said of poachers and the new law. "You just try your luck on the poaching, but the moment we catch up to you, you are done."

Kenya's new law is being paired with increased training and deployment of advanced equipment.

Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy will deploy drones later this year to help protect rhinos Parks in Tanzania and South Africa are also increasing their use of surveillance drones. In South Africa's massive Kruger Park, where hundreds of rhinos are killed each year, rangers are hunting for poachers using a former military helicopter and night-vision equipment provided by a private company.

During a three-day training session last month on the slopes of Mount Kenya, a team of Kenyan wildlife agents crouched behind a veil of green bush as they waited for their target. When two armed "poachers" walked by, the 12-man Kenyan squad opened fire, downing the two role-playing animal killers. Standing nearby was a team of British paratroopers leading the training.

Colonel Mark Christie, the commander of the British base that lies on the northwest side of Mount Kenya, a unit known as the British Army Training Unit Kenya, said the Kenyan wildlife officers used tactics similar to British troops, but noted the Kenyans manoeuvre better in the wild than his own troops.

During the exercise, about a dozen rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya Forest Service crept through the woods, using hand signals to move as silently as possible. A mountain river bubbled in the background as the team set up an ambush and waited for the poachers to pass by. Using blank rounds, the rangers unleashed 30 seconds of gunfire on the two. In this deadly game in which both sides are armed, the rangers shoot to kill.

A KWS ranger who could give only his first name, John, for security reasons, helps protect rhino on a private ranch near Mount Kenya. In November his team killed a poacher in a 01:00 battle that also saw one poacher escape, he said.

"Every day gunshots are reported," said the 26-year-old. "You must be very keen and see them first. Otherwise you are dead."

Own the night

Five KWS rangers were killed in the line of duty last year.

Poachers, John said, mostly work at night, and mostly when the moon is close to full. His platoon of 36 have three sets of night vision goggles between them, but poachers often have such goggles, too, he said.

The joint exercise helped the sides enhance and exchange knowledge on counter-poaching tactics, Christie said.

"From what I see in the papers the problem isn't getting better. This is part of an overall plan, a small microchip of a UK contribution," Christie said.

Poachers killed around 280 elephant in Kenya last year, a huge number but down from 2012, when 384 were killed. Kenya's elephant population is estimated to be around 35 000. Other countries in the region, namely Tanzania, have seen tens of thousands of elephants killed over the last couple of years. Wildlife experts anywhere between 20 000 and 30 000 African elephant are being killed per year.

In South Africa, a park ranger describes a war of attrition in which poaching syndicates dispatch what seems like an endless stream of triggermen, some with military training, to hunt rhino for their horns. Officials said seven suspected poachers died in four separate confrontations with Kruger rangers last weekend.

"Currently, they're trying to overwhelm us," said Bruce Leslie, a conservationist-turned-combatant in Kruger National Park, South Africa's flagship game reserve. "They're just trying to send in the masses, the cannon fodder, if you like. Expendable people. It's the middle men that actually need to go to jail."

Rangers want to operate more effectively at night, a task made somewhat easier with the donation late last year of an unarmed, former British military helicopter that will allow pilots to scout with night vision equipment and thermal cameras. The Gazelle helicopter was given by businessman Ivor Ichikowitz on behalf of his family foundation and Paramount Group, a South African aerospace and defence firm that he founded.

Prince Charles

David Mabunda, CEO of South African National Parks, noted: "He who owns the night wins the war. So far, the poachers have been owning the night." He hopes the new equipment will help swing the balance in favour of the rangers.

Kruger's rangers, who get help from South African National Defence Force troops, also use low-tech approaches, following poachers' tracks with the help of sniffer dogs and spending days in the bush with minimal gear.

Park officials say poachers often slip across the border from neighbouring Mozambique. Periodic shoot-outs usually occur far from tourists, who can only tour about 7% of a park that is the size of some small countries.

Home to most of Africa's rhino, South Africa lost 1 004 to poachers last year, more than half of them in Kruger. The horn is sold for high prices in some parts of Asia, particularly Vietnam, where some view it as a status symbol and a medicine despite no evidence that it can cure ailments.

The UK government next month will host a conference attended by Prince Charles on the illegal wildlife trade to improve the prospects for the world's elephant, rhino and tigers.

- AP

[Sprocky]

2014-01-27 07:03

Nairobi - Poachers have slaughtered a rhino in the Kenyan capital's national park, officials said on Sunday, as the brazen attack came despite tough new laws designed to stem a surge of such killings.

Amid a wave of rhino and elephant killings across the country, the shooting of the rhino in the heavily guarded Nairobi park - the headquarters of the government's Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) - illustrates how easily poachers are decimating the country's large animals.

"Nairobi National Park is one of the best protected areas, so it is a really shocking thing for us," KWS spokesperson Paul Udoto told AFP.

"The rhino horns were hacked and taken away... investigations are underway."

Kenyan courts have for years had their hands tied by laws that limited their powers over those convicted of wildlife crimes, but a new wildlife act signed into law this month has provided far stiffer penalties.

Previously, punishment for the most serious wildlife crimes was capped at a maximum fine of 40 000 Kenyan shillings (R5 168.44), and a possible jail term of up to 10 years.

Some smugglers caught in Kenya with a haul of ivory were even fined less than a dollar a piece.

New laws have massively increased the punishment, with poachers now facing fines of as much as 20 million shillings (R2.5m) and possible life in jail.

Nairobi's national park, which lies just 7km from the tower blocks of the bustling centre, is described by KWS as "a unique ecosystem by being the only protected area in the world close to a capital city".

Poachers killed a rhino in the park in August in a similar attack, escaping with the horn, the first such attack for more than five years.

It is a major rhino sanctuary, and its previously believed secure environment - fenced in for much of its 117km² - was seen as ideal for breeding and restocking other parks.

- AFP

[Flutterby]

Untouchable? Wildlife crime kingpin Vixay Keosavang

By Julian Rademeyer
February 14, 2014


Vixay Keosavang is one of the most ruthless and prolific wildlife criminals operating in South-East Asia today. Some call him the “Pablo Escobar of animal trafficking”. Others describe him as the “Mr Big” of wildlife crime in Laos, the tiny one-party communist state bordered by Myanmar, China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam that continues to harbour him.

The criminal syndicate he oversees, dubbed the “Xaysavang network” after the name of an import/export company he established in 2008, has been implicated in the smuggling and slaughter of thousands of animals including pangolins, primates, reptiles, snakes, rhinos, elephants, lions and tigers.

The US Government calls the Xaysavang syndicate “one of the most prolific international wildlife trafficking syndicates in operation” and, late last year, issued a US$1 million reward for information “leading to the dismantling” of the network.

But despite this – and despite overwhelming evidence of its criminal activities – the network continues to ply its deadly trade and Vixay remains utterly untouchable, protected by the Lao PDR Government and the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats he has so ably cultivated.

The former headquarters of the Xaysavang Trading Export Import company in Paksan, Laos (c) Julian RademeyerI spent two years investigating and documenting the syndicate’s involvement in the grisly trade in rhino horn and lion bones from South Africa. In the course of my research, I amassed hundreds of pages of documents including CITES permits, invoices and emails detailing Xaysavang’s activities. In all, Vixay’s name appeared just 16 times. He remained largely in the shadows, a distant puppet-master reaping the rewards of the killing but rarely dirtying his own hands.

The tangled web of evidence led from South Africa to Kenya, Thailand, Vietnam and finally to a house in Paksan, a small town situated on the banks of the Mekong River in central Laos.

A 2003 Thai police intelligence report on wildlife traffickers lists Vixay by name and includes some details of wildlife transactions in which he was involved. Four years later, a Vietnamese journalist, Huong Quoc Dung, published a series of articles on the illegal primate trade and unearthed documents showing that Xaysavang had exported more than 80,000 animals, including 7,000 monkeys, 13,000 snakes and 60,000 turtles. The monkeys went to a Vietnamese company called Trung Viet.

An alleged member of the Xaysavang syndicate poses with a set of lion bones, supplied by Julian Rademeyer
An alleged member of the Xaysavang syndicate poses with a set of lion bones, supplied by Julian Rademeyer

Documents I obtained during my investigations shed light on other wildlife trafficking operations. One, dated March 2009, was a sales agreement between Xaysavang and a Vietnamese company called ThaisonFC. In terms of agreement, Vixay promised to supply the company with more than 100,000 live animals including 40,000 rat snakes, 20,000 monocellate cobras, 10,000 king cobras, 20,000 water monitors and 20,000 endangered yellow-headed temple turtles. The price: $860,000.

In 2009, Kenyan customs officials seized 280kg of elephant ivory and two unmounted rhino horn “trophies” weighing 18kg. The consignment, which had originated in Mozambique, was on its way to Paksan and the Xaysavang Trading Export Import Company Limited.

Late in 2011, an undercover team from the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) visited a neglected farm on the outskirts of Paksan. It found 575 macaques in cages. They were starving. Many were on the brink of death and others lay dead in their pens. The farm belonged to Vixay.

Elsewhere, other pieces of the jigsaw were falling into place. There were seizures in Thailand. The Bangkok-based Freeland Foundation, headed by Steven Galster, uncovered evidence which ultimately led Galster to conclude that Vixay is “the Mr Big in Laos”.

“He seems so well-protected and we haven’t met any law enforcement officers in Laos who are able, or willing, to take this on,” he told me later.

In July 2011, the South African Revenue Service dealt what was believed at the time to be a hammer-blow to the syndicate. Two of Vixay’s closest lieutenants, Chumlong Lemtongthai and Punpitak Chunchom, were arrested. On Chumlong’s laptop, investigators discovered a treasure-trove of digital photographs, video footage and documents. It gave a unique insight into the activities of a transnational wildlife crime syndicate.

The photographs and videos were hard to look at, graphically detailing the sham rhino hunts the syndicate had conducted to ensure a steady supply of rhino horn trophies to Laos where they would be cut up and sold for thousands of dollars. There were also images of lion carcasses being stripped of flesh for the bones. And there were photos documenting the pay-offs to South African game farmers who had thrown in their lot with the syndicate. One farmer posed for the camera with his wife and daughter, grinning stupidly over a huge pile of cash.

Chumlong was subsequently sentenced to 40 years in prison. The sentence was reduced on appeal to 30 years. Charges against Punpitak Chunchom and two alleged accomplices, game farmer Marnus Steyl and a professional hunter, Harry Claassens, were withdrawn after Chumlong pleaded guilty and claimed they had no knowledge of the crimes. Punpitak quickly slipped out of South Africa and returned to Thailand. How he did so remains a mystery. His passport was still in the possession of the South African Police Service at the time. Today he is a wanted man, with an Interpol Red Notice hanging over his head.

Steyl – who continues to maintain his innocence – was later rearrested and charged with 29 counts of fraud relating to the acquisition of rhino hunting permits and two counts of illegally hunting white rhinos. One of those instances was filmed by Chumlong with a GoPro camera. This week, Steyl approached a South African High Court to request a permanent stay of his prosecution. Should he fail to obtain it, he will be back in court in March.

The initial joy over the arrests and convictions was short-lived. Like a hydra, the Xaysavang syndicate quickly sprouted other heads. In early 2013, the Freeland Foundation identified a young woman named Loy Chanthamvonga as Vixay’s possible replacement for Chumlong. She was linked to a rhino horn shipment smuggled into Thailand by a Vietnamese national. Two police officers were also implicated in the smuggling attempt and arrested, but Loy managed to evade capture. She speaks a number of languages, is believed to be the holder of both a Vietnamese and a Laotian passport and has travelled frequently to Mozambique in southern Africa.

Since the US Government announced its $1 million bounty, the sign outside the house that once served as the headquarters of the Xaysavang syndicate in Paksan has been taken down. Vixay’s family still live there, but he is now believed to spend much of his time in the Laotian capital Vientiane. Compelling evidence gathered recently by Kenya-based wildlife crime investigator Karl Ammann suggests that Vixay is active in a tiger-breeding farm and receives “tons” of lion bones which are smuggled to Vietnam. There, in traditional medicine shops and back-alley dealerships, they are passed off as tiger bones. Vixay continues to boast to potential clients that he can obtain rhino horn, although he has said it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

There are rumours too of his involvement in a bizarre scheme to smuggle heroin, concealed in consignments of dogs being trucked through Thailand and Laos into Vietnam.

It seems astonishing, given the amount of evidence gathered, that the Xaysavang network is still in business. It illustrates the daunting challenge that exists in bringing transnational wildlife crime networks to book. Syndicates like the Xaysavang network can adapt far faster and are better financed than many of the investigative agencies arrayed against them. The latter are largely out-gunned, out-manoeuvred and hamstrung by bureaucratic red tape. Investigations stop where borders begin.

The Laotian Government – which sent a delegation to this week’s wildlife crime talks in London – remains silent about Vixay’s activities and there seems to be little interest or will on its part in taking any action against him. His political ties – which, in the past, have reportedly even seen him accompany a former Laotian Prime Minister on an official state visit to Vietnam – have held him in good stead.

The terrifying truth is that Vixay is one of very few wildlife crime “kingpins” that we have been able to identify. That he was identified at all was largely thanks to his own hubris and the arrogance and rank stupidity of key figures in the Xaysavang network who left behind a damning digital trail of evidence.

We know where Vixay lives. We know who works with. Yet he remains untouchable. If we can’t reach him, then who can we reach? There are countless other syndicate bosses whose names we don’t know. They remain well below the radar and continue to feed a seemingly insatiable market for contraband wildlife products.

In South Africa, where I live, more than 2,600 rhino have been lost to poachers since 2008. That is 10 times the number poached in South Africa in the preceding 27 years. Elsewhere in Africa, tens of thousands of elephants are being slaughtered every year. The killing is relentless. Lions, tigers, pangolins, reptiles, primates, birds and forests – to name but a few – are being cut down on a frightening scale.

Time is fast running out. In fact, it has run out.

[Mel]

We know where Vixay lives. We know who works with. Yet he remains untouchable. If we can’t reach him, then who can we reach? There are countless other syndicate bosses whose names we don’t know. They remain well below the radar and continue to feed a seemingly insatiable market for contraband wildlife products.

Dunno, but Rademeyer seems to have a bit of a brain and expertise and when he says stuff like that, I find it really frightening.

[Duke]

Vietnam's illegal trade in rhino horn

Vietnam's illegal trade in rhino horn

Record numbers of rhinos are being poached and killed in South Africa for their horn. Many of those horns end up being sold illegally for their supposed medicinal properties - in countries such as Vietnam.

On 30 December 2013, a park ranger on patrol in South Africa stumbled across the body of a two-tonne, 3m-long dead rhino. Its horn had been torn from its face and it had almost certainly died in slow agony. The ranger used his radio to contact the park HQ saying simply, "Another one gone."

They knew immediately what he meant.

The death took the number of rhinos poached and killed for their horn last year to 1,004, a 50% increase over the previous year. The South African department of environmental affairs says 668 were killed in 2012. A decade ago, in 2003, only 22 rhinos were poached.



f it continues at this rate, the African rhino could face extinction, according to Naomi Doak of the respected wildlife monitoring network, Traffic.

"We are going to reach the tipping point for rhinos," she says. "By the end of 2014, we're starting to be in the negative in terms of deaths and poaching outstripping birth and the population will start to decline very quickly."

Traditional Medicine Street in Hanoi bustles with street vendors balancing their wares on bicycles while dodging cars. People crowd on to the pavement to drink tea, smoke and play card games. It feels a world away from the vast plains of the South African veldt. But these two worlds are inextricably and, for the rhino, tragically connected.

I am told it is the place to buy rhino horn in Hanoi, so I decide to see how easy it is.

Journalists are closely monitored, though, in this one-party communist state, so my minder is never far away. It has been illegal to buy or sell rhino horn in Vietnam for eight years and the traders all shake their heads at my request to buy. "It hasn't been sold in the street for a long time," says one.

But when I return later - without my minder, and with a hidden camera - traders are happy to oblige. I claim to have a sick husband. One trader tells me that if I grind the horn in to powder and mix it with alcohol, it will cure his cancer. "For the middle stage of cancer, it has a 85-to-90% success rate," he says.

At $6,000 (£3,660) for 100g (3.5oz), it is more expensive than gold in Vietnam, at current prices. And yet, biologists say, the main component of the rhino horn is a material similar to the human finger nail.

I go to another who claims he is a traditional medicine doctor and say I am looking for a hangover cure. "You've come to the right place," says Mr Nguyen, and shoves a large piece of rhino horn in my hands. "It cures fever and is good for removing poisons from the body which makes it a good remedy for hangovers."

have been warned that a lot of the horn sold on Traditional Medicine Street is fake and I ask Nguyen to reassure me. "I went to South Africa myself," he says and shows me his hunting permit to shoot two rhinos in 2009. His wife accompanied him and he has a picture of his eight-year-old son standing beside an animal he shot and killed.

He shows me documents, all stamped by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), which approve the export from South Africa and the import to Vietnam of a "trophy horn". He tells me all this makes the sale perfectly legal. But it is not.

Most of the rhinos in the wild are found in South Africa where the black rhino is considered endangered and the white rhino remains in the threatened category.

Nonetheless, rhino hunting is permitted under strict rules - fewer than 100 experienced hunters can apply for a permit every year to shoot just one rhino and they're legally required to keep the horn intact, as a trophy. The argument is that hunting encourages privately owned rhino parks and therefore adds to rhino numbers. Permits costing tens of thousands of dollars contribute to the local economy.

In 2010, the last Javan rhino in Vietnam disappeared, a subspecies hunted to extinction. As the Javan rhino became scarcer at home, Vietnamese hunters started applying for South African permits. By 2010, there were more Vietnamese applying to shoot a rhino in South Africa than any other nationality.

But, like Nguyen on Traditional Medicine Street, they were found to be abusing the system. Against the rules, they were importing the horns back to Vietnam and selling them. When South Africa banned Vietnamese hunters in 2012, organised crime syndicates took over who now employ poachers to supply the market for horn in Vietnam and other Asian countries, including China.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

What we are witnessing right now is the wholesale slaughter of a species”

Mary Rice Environmental Investigation Agency

Vietnam became a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species 20 years ago. The Cites secretariat has been urging the Vietnamese government for some years to tighten the laws and penalties against those selling horns. They were expected to have new laws in place in time for a conference on illegal wildlife trading being held in London this week.

I asked Do Quang Tung, who is charged with getting his government to comply with Cites demands, why it is taking so long? "Well, in order to prepare any regulation or law, you can't just make it in one year, it takes time you know," he says,

The trouble is, the wildlife experts say there is no time.

Mary Rice, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency warns: "What we are witnessing right now is the wholesale slaughter of a species, being poached to supply what is ultimately a growing and unsustainable market in Vietnam - and elsewhere. The international community should urgently focus its attentions on pursuing and convicting the criminals behind the organised networks perpetrating the trade."

[Richprins]

When South Africa banned Vietnamese hunters in 2012, organised crime syndicates took over who now employ poachers to supply the market for horn in Vietnam and other Asian countries, including China.

Yup! It was banned!

[Lisbeth]

BY PROF. DR. WOLFGANG H. THOME, ETN AFRICA CORRESPONDENT | FEB 22, 2014

“There is nothing world class about losing 6 rhinos in a week,” ranted a regular conservation source from Nairobi when passing the information that 6 rhinos were killed last week alone in Kenya. Lake Nakuru National Park, one of the main rhino sanctuaries, was just as affected as the Solio Game Reserve near Mweiga in Central Kenya with Ol Jogi also among those counting their losses.

Image via wildlifedirect.org

“KWS [Kenya Wildlife Service] is in the media for all the wrong reasons again and it is high time that the Minister now appoints a new board under the new law and not let the old board still meddle in affairs. In fact, some say her dragging her feet is one of the reasons why criminals are exploiting this period of transition perhaps to poke holes in the defenses of KWS because no organization can function 100 percent without a fully constituted board.”

Over 1,000 rhinos were killed last year in South Africa but the latest wave of killings in Kenya, unprecedented in such numbers, has rang the alarm bells among the conservation fraternity and raised surveillance and intelligence gathering to higher levels to prevent more such incidents.

Only 2 weeks earlier a rhino was brazenly killed in the Nairobi National Park, the horns hacked off and the poachers made a clean getaway, already then triggering questions for KWS over preparedness and effectiveness of their protective measures.

The news raised anger levels among conservationists, who had vested high hopes in the new deterrent fines and prison terms under the new wildlife law and calls are again emerging to introduce a shoot to kill policy for poachers and show them no mercy, even though this can be construed as extrajudicial killings.

It is yet to be seen how the new laws work in Kenya, and while the first ivory smuggling case resulted in the maximum fine of nearly US$232,000 for a Chinese man, subsequent cases inexplicably saw verdicts come in with only one million Kenya Shillings fine and, in spite of admitting additional offences, being let off the hook by a hapless magistrate, prompting immediate calls for a judicial enquiry.

Unconfirmed figures received from Nairobi speak of nearly 60 rhinos killed last year in Kenya for their horns, an alarming trend which if not halted may well wipe out the just over 1,000 rhinos in Kenya in just a few more years.

http://www.eturbonews.com/43031/south-a ... ast-africa

[Flutterby]

Zimbabwe - ‘No technology to save rhinos’ NewsDay March 29, 2014


THE country’s remaining 700 rhino population is at risk of being wiped out by poachers as government has admitted that it does not have the latest technology to safeguard the endangered species.
Environment, Water and Climate minister Saviour Kasukuwere told Parliament on Wednesday that lack of resources had hampered efforts to equip the rhino conservancies with the latest tracking and surveillance technology.
This comes amid reports that poachers were now using sophisticated methods to evade arrest.
Kasukuwere, however, said the country had recorded a decrease in rhino poaching over the past few years.
“It is a fact that indeed the rhino is an endangered species and as government, we have been trying to protect 700 of our rhino from poachers as they are determined to try and get better than us,” Kasukuwere said.
“Due to lack of financial resources, we have not yet gone towards acquiring the latest technology to provide 24-hour security.
“We would like to move towards that to quell poachers.
“However, this past year, we had a net gain of eight cows born and have seen a gradual decrease of the number of rhinos killed.”
Kasukuwere said as an interim measure, government had put most of its rhinoceros in conservancies and partnered with countries like Germany and private entities to safeguard them.
Meanwhile, a potentially fierce human-wildlife clash looms in Chipinge district where stray buffaloes and elephants from the Save Valley Conservancy have reportedly destroyed crops in the nearby villages.
Villagers have threatened to take the law into their own hands and hunt down the troublesome animals if government takes long to erect a new fence around the conservancy.
District administrators Edgar Seenza confirmed the development over the weekend.
“The problem has an effect on the total yield by farmers,” Seenza said.
“The best way to deal with the problem is to erect the electric fence because any other fence will not help the situation.
“There is now a Save Valley Conservancy Cabinet committee which is looking into that matter and I hope the electric fence will be put in place soon.
“That is the only effective way to deal with the situation.”
The security fence at the wildlife sanctuary was vandalised in 2012 after some top Zanu PF officials invaded the area under the banner of the party’s indigenisation policy.

[Richprins]

The security fence at the wildlife sanctuary was vandalised in 2012 after some top Zanu PF officials invaded the area under the banner of the party’s indigenisation policy.

The government is the problem, so good luck, rhino!...

[Toko]

Kenya suspends wildlife officials in poaching crackdown

11 April 2014 Last updated at 21:35 GMT

Kenya's government has suspended five officials from the wildlife service, amid growing concern over the poaching of endangered elephants and rhinos.

The officials were suspended as part of an investigation into mismanagement.

The government will directly oversee the running of the wildlife service, responsible for Kenya's national parks, for three months, a spokesman said.

Kenya has been facing growing condemnation over its failure to tackle an apparent rise in poaching.

Veteran conservationist Richard Leakey, a former boss of the Kenyan wildlife service, said last month that the country had become a global hub for ivory smuggling.

Dozens of poaching bosses had been allowed to act with "outrageous impunity", he said, in "a national disaster" that could result in the extinction of elephants and rhinos in the country.

According to officials, at least 18 rhinos and more than 50 elephants have been killed so far this year - a similar rate to that recorded last year.

However, some conservationists argue that the true figure is much higher.

The wildlife service recently denied that it was losing the battle against poachers.

On Friday, a senior environment ministry official, Richard Lesiyampe, said it had "become necessary" for the government to assume direct control of the wildlife service.

Mr Lesiyampe said the five officials had been placed on leave so as to pave the way for an investigation into the management of the service.

The AFP news agency quoted him as saying that the investigation would ask why sophisticated equipment - such as night-vision goggles and weapons - had yet to be deployed against the poachers, despite having been paid for.

"The poaching and trafficking in wildlife... has increased in sophistication and scope," he said. "We want to understand why our efforts are not working."

He also told reporters that the service would be restructured and equipped with 50 new vehicles and hundreds of new recruits.

The demand for ivory and rhino horn is being driven by China and south-east Asia, where these products are marketed as ornaments or so-called medicines.