KENYA: Kenyan wildlife rangers tranquillised a family of five elephants on Thursday as they began the biggest movement of animals in the country's history.
By the time the $3.2 million exercise ends, some 400 of the giant mammals will have been moved from their overcrowded home in Shimba Hills National Reserve to Tsavo East National Park - a journey of more than 200 miles.
A spokesman for the Kenya Widlife Service said: "The purpose is threefold. It will ease conflict between the elephants and the local community, protect the habitat in the reserve and enhance conservation of biodiversity.
"So far the move is progressing very smoothly."
Kenya's elephant population suffered a massive crash in the 1970s and 1980s as ivory poachers armed with automatic rifles cut a bloody swathe through the country. Numbers declined from an estimated 167,000 in 1973 to about 16,000 by the end of the 1980s.
Since then, numbers have bounced back to about 32,000 thanks to a crackdown on poaching and a 1989 worldwide ban on ivory trading.
The result is that Shimba Hills, like many other reserves in Kenya, faces a growing problem from its elephant population. Where once the giant mammals were in danger of being wiped out altogether, now booming populations are stripping indigenous forests bare and plundering the crops of local farmers.
In the coming weeks, vets will identify suitable candidates for transfer from helicopters before tranquillising the elephants and loading them into strengthened trucks for the eight-hour drive.
Not everyone is convinced that the exercise will be a success.
Daphne Sheldrick, who runs an elephant orphanage near Nairobi, said she was pleased that Kenya had not followed South Africa's example of culling elephants. But she said the elephants may not find Tsavo East as comfortable as Shimba Hills.
"They are taking a more compassionate approach to wildlife, which is a feather in the cap of the KWS," she said, "but they are moving animals from a very lush area to a semi-arid area, and the fear is that the elephants will just turn around and walk straight back home."
The KWS says it has taken account of these concerns. Animals will be moved in family groups to reduce their shock at the transfer.
Several matriarchs will also be fitted with radio collars so that rangers can track them and prevent them wandering back to Shimba Hills.
Julius Kipng'etich, Kenya Wildlife Service director, said an additional 83 ranger recruits, backed with aerial patrols, had been deployed at Tsavo East. "If the poachers come, they will find us ready," he said.