Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers and local police have launched a manhunt for suspected poachers following a gruesome discovery in the Warabo Forest of Wajir South Sub-County.
Authorities were alerted on August 23, 2026, after residents reported seeing two suspects driving toward the forest in a Suzuki Alto. Upon arrival at the scene, rangers discovered the remains of a slaughtered giraffe, with its meat harvested and only its head and bones left behind.
The suspects managed to evade capture after spotting the officers from a distance and driving off, losing the rangers in the terrain. Officials expressed deep concern over the incident, noting that illicit bushmeat is often sold to unsuspecting consumers without safety inspections, posing severe public health risks.
This incident highlights a rapidly escalating wildlife emergency across northern Kenya. According to the North Eastern Wildlife Conservancies Association (NECA), illegal poaching has reached catastrophic levels, threatening one of the world’s most vital populations of the endangered Somali giraffe.
In a formal petition to KWS Director General Prof. Erustus Kanga, NECA Chief Executive Officer Sharmake Mohamed revealed that at least three Somali giraffes are slaughtered daily across Garissa, Wajir, and parts of Mandera counties.
NECA criticized current law enforcement responses as short-term and reactive, failing to disrupt entrenched poaching networks that operate in hotspots such as Ali Kune, Abakore, Hare, Sabul, Sarif, Biyamadow, and along the Tana River basin.
Despite continuous intelligence, GPS data, and suspect profiles provided by local communities and conservancies, KWS operational funding and permanent ranger deployment in Garissa and Wajir remain severely inadequate relative to the scale of the threat. NECA noted that criminals simply wait out brief security operations before resuming their activities.
To prevent the total devastation of the species, NECA is calling on KWS to urgently deploy permanent ranger stations in high-risk zones, execute a multi-county intelligence-led strategy, and formally integrate community conservancies into operational planning.
The association emphasized that while local communities actively gather intelligence and foster human-wildlife coexistence, true conservation success requires a sustained structural response rather than temporary measures.
Warning of potential legal and constitutional action if immediate steps are not taken, NECA stressed that every slaughtered giraffe represents a breakdown in the protection system, cautioning that history will judge how custodians responded while Kenya’s Somali giraffes faced extinction.
