Did you know elephants form deep family bonds and live in tight matriarchal family?Poaching in Kenya has been flourishing in the last decade! In 1960 there were 167,000 elephants but as of now, 2013, the numbers of elephants are at 38,000. In the last two years 384 elephants were killed. Recent statistics show an elephant is killed every fifteen minutes!

Poaching cases are on the rise:

?span style="font-size: 7pt font-family: 'Times New Roman'">         January 2013, 12 elephants were killed in Tsavo National Park.

?span style="font-size: 7pt font-family: 'Times New Roman'">         March 2013, a Chinese national was arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with 1,439 tusks.

?span style="font-size: 7pt font-family: 'Times New Roman'">         July 2013, ivory consignment of 3.2 tones of ivory was captured in Mombasa.

?span style="font-size: 7pt font-family: 'Times New Roman'">         Later in July 2013, 1,500 kg ivory task were captured in Mombasa.

?span style="font-size: 7pt font-family: 'Times New Roman'">         October 2013 ivory weighing 7 kg was captured at a city estate in Nairobi .

These are just some of the high profile cases but there are still small spates of cases that have not been reported. These have been attributed by the prices of Ivory in the black market. One kg of ivory in the black market price is Kshs. 210,000(USD.2, 400) biggest market is China and Thailand, even as ivory trade is banned in many countries.

To stop poaching in Kenya, a wildlife direct initiative known as Hands off Our Elephants was launched. Its aim is create awareness about the importance of elephants. It?s been championed by the first lady Margret Kenyatta, organization, government and its citizen. They have renewed calls for tougher penalties and Kenya?s parliament is on the pipeline in passing a bill that aims to minimize the acts of poaching. The bill will include, up to 10years imprisonment and a fine up to Kshs. 5 million (USD.57,161) also in the Kenya wildlife service has partnership between General Service unit and Administration Police in a new inter-agency anti-poaching police force. All these efforts are bringing hope to see the end of poaching in Kenya.