On 21 November 2018, the Kenya Wildlife Service opened an investigation into the deaths of three black rhinos in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Narok.
The animals — two adults and a calf — were discovered in the Mara Triangle on Tuesday night. Early findings pointed in different directions, with some officials suspecting a poisonous plant while others said the deaths may have been natural.
A KWS official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the press, ruled out poaching as a possible cause. He said samples had been collected from the carcasses and sent to the KWS laboratories in Nairobi to determine what killed them.
According to Narok County Commissioner George Natembeya, one of the rhinos was 57 years old, while the calf’s mother was believed to be between 15 and 20 years old. He said KWS Narok Senior Warden Dickson Ritan was leading the investigation and that a full report would follow once the laboratory results were released.
No rhino death had been reported in the reserve, which lies in southwestern Kenya, in the previous two years. In 2016, a black rhino was found dead near the Kenya-Tanzania border inside the reserve, and its horns were missing.
Black rhinos remain endangered and continue to face pressure from poachers. Mara Conservancy, which manages the Mara Triangle, says there are 49 black rhinos in Maasai Mara.
The population has fallen sharply over time. In 1971, the park had 120 black rhinos, but the number later dropped because of poaching. In 2015, KWS launched a forensic laboratory to help track poaching cases. In January 2016, the US government signed a memorandum of understanding on national conservation and management between the US Department of Interior and USAID, and Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, aimed at improving surveillance technology, training wildlife rangers and sharing information to counter poaching.
