Maina said a combined force of armed Kenya Wildlife Service rangers and police had fanned out around Tsavo East, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of Nairobi, to track the alleged poachers.
Tsavo East is home to an estimated 50 threatened black and highly endangered white rhinos, both of which are protected but prized by trophy hunters and poachers.
Rhino horns fetch high prices in Asian black markets due their believed medicinal properties as well as in the Middle East where they are used as decorative dagger handles by wealthy Arab elites.
Despite rigid enforcements of its poaching laws, the illegal trade in trophies is blamed for a serious decline in the number of rhinos in Kenya over the past 40 years.
Between 1963 and 1989, Kenya's rhino population declined by about 88 percent due to massive poaching, prompting authorities to start conservation programs, which included allowing private ranches to keep the animals.
According to the Kenya Wildlife Service, there are now about 435 black rhinos and 200 white rhinos in Kenya, although conservationists have in the past accused the agency of overestimating the population.
Name: Black Rhinoceros (
Diceros bicornis)
Primary Classification: Rhinocerotidae (Rhinoceroses)
Location: Eastern and southern Africa.
Habitat: Scrub forest, wooded savanna and grassland.
Diet: Brush and low trees.
Size: Up to 10 ft in length and 1.5 tons in weight.
Description: Dark gray skin with virtually no hair; long front horn; short secondary horn; prehensile upper lip; massive build; stocky legs.
Cool Facts: It can outrun most human sprinters. It grows a new horn if the first one breaks off. It can eat plants that are poisonous to other animals.
Conservation Status: Critically Endangered
Major Threat(s): Poaching.
What Can I Do?: Visit
SOS Rhino and
The International Rhino Foundation for information on how you can help.
