POLICE and KWS officers on Monday arrested four suspected poachers in Narok county with eight elephant tusks worth Sh1.92 million and game meat in three separate incidents.
In the first incident, two suspects were arrested trying to sell six tusks worth Sh1.8 million at Ntulele trading centre.
Narok North deputy police boss Paul Cheruiyot said the ivory weighed 18 kilos.
He said the poachers might have killed elephants in Mosiro at the border of Narok and Kajiado counties.
In another incident, a middle-aged man was nabbed with two tusks weighing eight kilos worth Sh120,000.
The suspect was arrested at Lemek trading centre in the outskirts of the Masai Mara Game Reserve.
The third suspect was arrested with 300kg of zebra meat worth Sh60,000 at Suswa roadblock on the Narok-Mai Mahiu highway.
Narok North police boss Paul Letting said the man was nabbed when the public got suspicious after seeing a saloon car parked on the roadside for a long time and informed the police.
“The police rushed to the scene and established that the suspect was ferrying zebra meat,” Letting said.
He said the meat was probably headed to Naivasha town to be sold to unsuspecting customers.
The zebra meat is believed to be from Masai Mara.
Cheruiyot said police and Kenya Wildlife Service have heightened surveillance to nab poachers.
Narok county KWS senior warden William Sang said surveillance in the Masai Mara Game Reserve has been improved to net those involved in the illegal trade.
Sang urged courts not to offer lenient bonds to suspected poachers to serve as a deterrent to would-be poachers.
“Most of the elephant deaths that have been reported in the recent past have been through poisoned arrows. Sadly, most poachers resort to this traditional method because sensors that have been placed in our parks can pick out the sound of a gun,” he said.