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Elephant kills poacher
NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- A man was trampled to death by an elephant in Kenya while he was trying to poach timber in a forest, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said.
KWS game warden Julius Kimani said on Friday the attack happened in a forest in Laikipia district, about 110 miles (180 km) northwest of Nairobi.
The East African Standard newspaper said the man, a 40-year-old farmer, had been killed trying to scare away a herd of elephants which had invaded his farm.
But Kimani told Reuters the man was trying to poach timber and encountered an elephant in the forest, not in the nearby settled area.
Marauding elephants cause havoc in Laikipia when their traditional annual migration routes take them through areas once forested and now farmed.
Hundreds of hectares of farmland are destroyed each year.
Kimani discounted newspaper reports that at least 20 people had been killed by elephants in Laikipia in the last six months but added that animal-human conflict in the July-October migration was intense.
"The migration routes are instinctive, the (elephants) have to pass there," he said. "But (when) the forests have already been cleared, people started cultivating. So the elephant just goes through the farm."
Kimani said an estimated 2,500 elephants or more annually move south to Laikipia, returning north when the short rainy season begins.
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