A 32-year-old man was killed by a stray elephant at Oloirien area in Trans-Mara West Sub-county on Monday evening.
Confirming the incident, Trans Mara Sub-county Police Commander, Hamisi Ganzala, said the deceased, Alex Nyagiekaro Ontobo, was heading home at around 6:00 pm when he came face to face with the elephant that had strayed from the Maasai Mara Game Reserve and attacked him, killing him on the spot.
The body has now been moved to St. Joseph Mission Hospital, mortuary pending postmortem and further investigations into the incident by police and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
Narok is a wildlife County, earning more than 60 per cent of its income from wildlife with the famous Maasai Mara Game Reserve, known worldwide for its spectacular wildebeest’s migration providing the bulk of this revenue.
However, there has been an increase in incidences of human-wildlife conflict in the area that borders the famous Maasai Mara National Game Reserve, where several lives have been lost in the past and others injured by wildlife, bringing to the fore the ever-thorny issue of human-wildlife conflict in the County and the Country at large.
Livestock too has not been spared as hundreds of them have been killed by wildlife in the area as the wildlife move out of the park and stray into residential.
Last month, a pack of hyenas invaded a homestead in Olmayiana village in Lekanka area in Narok West Sub-county and killed over 30 sheep, leaving scores of others injured.
These are just one of the many incidences of human-wildlife conflict that are rampant in Narok.
Experts now say environmental degradation and increasing settlements due to population pressure had caused the wildlife in the famous Maasai Mara Game Reserve to move out and this has brought about conflicts.
