Booming Elephant Herd to Pack Their Trunks

Kenya's elephant population, once headed for extinction, is growing so robustly that the authorities are planning their biggest-ever relocation to ease overcrowding.

A herd of 400 will be rounded up and shipped south to thin out a coastal reserve and spare local farmland. Fences have been trampled down and crops destroyed because of the large numbers.

Rangers in helicopters will fire tranquilliser darts at selected animals in the Shimba Hills reserve before they are secured and loaded into giant crates for the 93-mile road trip to the bigger Tsavo East national park in southern Kenya. The operation will cost about £1.5m.

"Shimba Hills is a very small ecosystem," Edward Indakwa, a spokesman for the wildlife service, said. "The park has 600 elephants and they have damaged the habitat.

"When we remove them there will be less conflict with the neighbouring communities and the habitat will get a chance to rejuvenate."

The overpopulation problem marks a rapid recovery from the situation in the 1980s, when Kenya's elephant population was in danger of being wiped out by ivory poachers.

A worldwide moratorium on ivory trading led to a rise in elephant numbers in the 1990s by about a third to some 27,000.

The elephants will help to repopulate Tsavo East, where poaching had cut numbers to fewer than 7,000, compared with 40,000 in the 1960s.

Officials plan to add more electric fencing and drinking pans for the elephants to discourage raids on settlements. There will also be more patrols by rangers, who will, as a last resort, shoot any elephant threatening human life.