Peter Mwaura, a reformed poacher, first engaged in the trade in 1993, and was arrested about 15 times, but would often be released due to lack of evidence.
Why? There were no exhibits to display in court.
Dressed in a light grey trouser, a blue and white jacket and adorning a Rastafarian’s head gear, Mwaura says he acquired poaching skills from his grandfather, who hunted small animals such as rabbits, gazelles and warthogs for consumption at home.
He tells me he specialised in poaching animals such as zebras, buffalos, giraffes and hippos, whose meat he would sell to traders at Burma market in Nairobi.
Those who ordered game meat were wealthy men who owned expensive cars, so police never considered them suspects.
“I would take the meat up to Limuru and then they would send me the cash and allow me to travel back,” he says.
Spectacular view in Kilifi as locals interact with wild elephants
Noting that he faced life-and-death situations right from the time he went on the hunt for wild game, Mwaura says the bush meat business is risky across its entire chain.
“It was difficult to kill some big, dangerous animals since when I attacked them and they were in pain, they hit me hard, but I had no choice but to persevere, motivated by the gains from selling the meat,” he says.
I was curious about the earnings that made Mwaura and the other five members of the gang risk their lives.
“We made approximately US $460-500 three times a week. I earned about US $200 as the leader, since I was the one with all the connections, and they would share the rest,” he says.
As my cameraman and I drove through Hell’s Gate National Park, encountering a herd of buffalos chewing cud, Mwaura lets us in on the tactics he used to subdue and eventually capture wild animals.
“I would lie on my tummy and crawl to where the animals were relaxing. With a very sharp machete, I would target one and aim at one of its hind legs. When it tried running away, I would aim at the second leg, immobilising it. When the other animals ran for their lives, we would kill the immobilised one and slaughter it.”
"When I spent time in jail, I realised I had wasted and risked my life fighting aggressive wounded animals, which sometimes really hurt me, yet there was no gain. Even my dogs could smell a bullet from the experience of being shot but managing to escape.”
While Mwaura was in prison, his group of six poachers disintegrated and everyone returned home.
Since regaining his freedom, he has also settled for the quieter life; he now spends his time fishing to put food on his family’s table.
A five hours’ drive south of Hell’s Gate National Park is Maasai Mara National Reserve, where we meet Kinyaika Kilango, a 60-year-old reformed poacher.
He currently works with one of the most prestigious wildlife conservancy companies at the park - Cottars 1920s Safari Camp - a job he got after serving four years in prison.
When I met him, Kinyaika was dressed in a greyish checked polo shirt, a grey trouser, a jungle windbreaker and a Cottars Safari cap.
Kinyaika, a member of the Kamba community from Kitui, says his imprisonment due to poaching activities at Tsavo National Park would have happened earlier but he used all the techniques he had acquired to hide from Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officials.
Two vehicles confiscated by KWS from wildlife crime convicts.
Photo credit: Courtesy | Peter Njuru
It was difficult for him to open up, the fear being that KWS officials might be harbouring plans of convicting him afresh. It took time to convince him that I was only interested in his input on deterring poaching.
His poaching experience, just like Mwaura’s, spanned about 20 years.
His was a family hobby which started as hunting but progressed to poaching once he learnt that what he referred to as the elephant’s 'teeth', or tusks, could earn him extra cash.
He tells me that plenty of time went into learning how to shoot elephants with poisoned arrows, which would bring them down fast.
It was a very risky business for his team of eight poachers as they hid behind trees and dense bushes to monitor KWS planes patrolling the national park.
“I wore the worst clothes so that if push came to shove when chased by wardens, I would discard them. I remember going home naked one day. When my mother and my wife saw me, they cried, but life went on and I continued poaching," he says.
"I concentrated on animals that earned me more cash, which were elephants and rhinos. One elephant would feed my family for about six months. At that time their meat would fetch US $3 per kilogramme. A big elephant weighed up to 400 kilogrammes. This earned me good money."
He is remorseful about his poaching activities and feels he would have been jailed longer, having killed over 40 elephants.
He has since reformed, after completing his jail term, and started working in collaboration with the KWS in educating the public on the dangers of poaching.
He’s also found that elephants can still serve as an income earner, but in a more communally enriching manner that also ensures they live.
“Since I came here, I found one elephant who has both my employer and I cash. The government and locals benefit from guests who come to see this elephant alive,” he says.
Community association vows to protect Nakuru's Bahati Forest from illegal loggers, poachers
The KWS senior warden in Narok, Richard Chepkwony, says there was no poaching of endangered species at the Maasai Mara in 2020, even with the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw many people lose their livelihoods.
Mr Chepkwony says residents living in Narok now appreciate wildlife and protect them, as they attribute their wellbeing to them.
“The lockdown because of Covid-19 severely affected families. They earn a lot from tourism and report any suspected poachers to us. All businesses here have something to do with tourism. The people therefore perceive poaching as biting the hand that feeds you,” said Richard Chepkwony.
The KWS staff have, however, come across several snares strategically placed for use in killing wildlife in the expansive park. The presence of the snares shows that despite the vigilance of the authorities and locals, poachers find loopholes to exploit.
Data shared by the Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW) indicates that poaching continued in 2020. The organisation says it was impossible to go to the field with a total lockdown due to the pandemic, therefore the data was only from July to December 2020.
I talked to an investigation officer in Narok, Jack Muyanga, who told me the Wildlife Act has a number of punitive measures, which were put in place to make poaching unattractive.
“Upon completion of court cases, the medium used to ferry the wildlife trophies is also forfeited to the State, as was the case with the two vehicles you see here. Unexplained wealth owned by arrested culprits is also forfeited to the state."
On January 28, 2014, for instance, a Kenyan court handed a record sentence to a Chinese ivory smuggler, the first person convicted under this new law.
Mr Tang Yong Jian was ordered to pay a fine of Sh20 million (US $185,270.96 ) or serve a jail term of seven years for being in possession of a tusk weighing 3.4 kilogrammes.
By comparison, poachers such as Mwaura and Kinyaika got much more lenient sentences despite committing the crime for decades.
In fact, Muyanga says, some victims voluntarily pleaded guilty because the fines were so low that they could easily pay them and return to poaching after being released.
“Since enactment of Wildlife Act, 2013, KWS has been given the power to handle its own cases. As investigating officers, we make most cases flawless in court. Exhibits, files and witnesses are presented on time so the cases take a short time to be concluded. I would put the prosecutorial success rate at 70 percent,” he says.
Tourism CS Najib Balala speaking on poaching of rhinos
At Burma market in Nairobi, the butchers I talked to say bush meat is no longer sold there.
Mwangi (real name withheld) told me KWS seems to have stationed ‘its people’ at the market. He remembers a time in 2019 when there was so much zebra meat in the market that the KWS had to conduct a crackdown.
“KWS officials came with policemen and went straight to the stalls that had zebra meat, carted away the meat and arrested the stalls' owners. We have never seen them again,” he said.
In a series of tweets on September 12, 2019, KWS said it had arraigned three suspects found with 3,000 kilogrammes of bush meat from zebras, giraffes and buffalos, as well as freezers used to store the meat. The suspects were released on bond but the case is ongoing.
Data from Wildlife Direct for the years 2016-2019 shows the conviction rate for wildlife crimes in Kenya is somewhere between 90 and 95 percent, but the devil is in the detail.
This high rate reflects convictions for less serious offences such as illegal grazing and illegal logging in national parks. The conviction rate for persons accused of trophy hunting crimes was only 68.2 percent.
The law states that a maximum fine of Sh100,000 (US $1,000) be applied with the option of a six-month jail term. The sentences mostly given in Voi and Taveta courts involved fines of between Sh10, 000 and Sh20,000 (US $93-185).
Eighty one percent of the accused paid the fines while the rest walked free mainly because they were minors. Herders are reported to use children to graze so as to avoid the long arm of the law.
