Kenyan wildlife authorities arrested 13 people since the weekend in an escalated drive against illegal hunting and poaching, the country's wildlife agency said Monday, according to dpa. Some of the suspects appeared in court Monday, including a man charged with illegally possession of four elephants tusks, a leopard's skin and meat of a dik dik or small antelope. A local legislator who prevented officers from arresting the suspected poacher was also arrested and charged. "Motivation is very high to find these guys. We have heightened intelligence gathering machinery and there is a lot of good will from the public to tell us where the poachers are," said Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) spokesman Paul Udoto, adding that all arrests were made Saturday. Among those stopped were seven Tanzanians, accused of hunting illegally in Kenya's Tsavo West National Park, near the border. Hunting is allowed in Tanzania but hunters are known to cross into Kenya, where it has been outlawed since the 1970s, to find game. Kenya's diverse wildlife is a pillar of its thriving tourism industry, which is one of the impoverished country's greatest foreign exchange earners. The country won a bid last month to extend a 1989 ban on ivory trading for another nine years.
