sad! ‘ufisi’ on another level as parents lose their son

Human- animal conflict has been major complain day in day out. Kenyans have complained of animals invading their homesteads, destroying their crops and killing their livestock. It hasn’t been a good day for a family from Leleshwa village ,Ol Moran area of Laikipia as they watched  in disbelief as their 12 years old son was mauled to death a hyena. Together with the villagers, his parents tried to send away the hyena which charged towards them making them retreat until all that was left was the boy’s skeleton.

The boy’s parents were also attacked by the ugly beast as they tried to help out their son leading to their admission at Nyahururu County Referral Hospital.

The young boy is said to have been preparing to report to school when the roaming animal entered their house and mauled him at about 5am. His mother was in the kitchen preparing breakfast while his father was still sleeping and on hearing the boy scream, all came out to help him.

Mohammed Madela, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) warden in charge of Laikipia West, visited the family to console them. He attributed the attack to a recent fire at the Laikipia Nature Conservancy for driving wild animals out of the conservancy into human settlement. He added, ”The animals are now living in Lariak forest, a kilometer from the home of the victims.” He also admits to have received many reports from residents of animals suspected to be from conservancy roaming in the villages after the fire incident. He says that officers have been deployed in the area to relocate the stray animals back to the parks.

The conflict between animals and human is said to be caused by the increased population leading to people settling around or in forests. The animals are eventually pushed into people’s resource constrained parks where competition for food and water is stiff. All these animals have to turn for survival to areas outside the national parks where they can obtain food bringing them in contact with the people living near those areas.

The current practice of the Kenya Wildlife Service is strictly to conserve wildlife at all costs.  It states that even the villager who kills a wild animal in self-defense when attacked will be prosecuted for his act. Will people just watch as others get killed by wild animals in fear of being prosecuted?

 

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