Elephant hunting in Kenya

[3] One of the most prolific of the white hunters was the Scottish adventurer W. D. M. Bell, who is reported to have killed over a thousand elephants, spread across several African countries.

Some of the madness of the desire to shoot an elephant (albeit not in Kenya) is shown in White Hunter Black Heart, a fictionalised version of what happened during the filming of the Hollywood classic African Queen.

[10][11][12][13][14] New Scientist claimed that there was now documentary proof that at least one member of "Kenya's royal family" (the Kenyatta) had shipped over six tons of ivory to China.

[15] In 1989, as a dramatic gesture to persuade the world to halt the ivory trade, President Daniel arap Moi ignited twelve tons of elephant tusks.

[16] In the 1990s the widespread ban on commercial ivory trading reduced the industry to a fraction of what it had been and elephant populations have stabilised.

The largest poaching incident in Kenya since the ivory trade ban occurred in March 2002, when a family of ten elephants was killed.

[22] An individual case that received publicity in 2014 was the death of Satao, one of the world's largest elephants, in the Tsavo Trust.

Despite Kenya Wildlife Service guards, poachers managed to shoot the bull with poisoned arrows and cut off his tusks.

Under this programme, while cash was offered as an incentive for sport hunting, the basic aim was wildlife control on the communal land, providing benefits to the community as a whole.

The income generated in total in Africa is quoted to be USD 201 million/year, derived from about 18,500 international hunting clients covering an area of 1.4 million km².