Human-Carnivore Conflict

Since May, we have been monitoring the conflicts in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service to ensure that the cases are reported and the locals get the much-deserved compensations while also conducting awareness meetings to curb the conflicts. Our hirola ranger Ali Hassan who attained his paralegal training has been of great help in ensuring the affected community members get the much-needed representation in compensation committees. We are hoping that the compensation process will be time so that the victim's losses are settled as this may go a long way to promoting coexistence between carnivores and the local community.

Since May, there has been high tension and we have been witnessing retaliatory attacks by the community members that have to end up to be devastating for both the carnivores and the community members as well.

In a recent case we witnessed a case where a family in Sankuri area launched a retaliatory attack on spotted hyenas which had killed 5 goats from their herd. They followed the hyenas before they reached their den which was just nearby and launched an attack that saw the death of one hyena and 3 individuals from the family including a 9-year-old. Our team and the KWS officers managed to respond to the incident and urged residents to desist from carrying out retaliatory attacks and poisoning of carnivores as their losses would be compensated as stipulated by the law. The injured victims are currently recovering well but we couldn’t establish the whereabouts of the hyenas except for the headless and severely mutilated body of the one the hyena displayed in the village.