The following article is written by Michael Nyachae and was published in InsideKE online.
KWS DG Erastus Kanga Admits 400 Rhino Calves Cannot Be Accounted For, Days After His KWS Contract Was Renewed Amid Ivory, Poison And Corruption Questions.
September 29th, 2026.
Kenya likes to tell one story about its wildlife service. Rhino numbers are up, poaching is down, and the agency deserves applause. On Saturday, the Director General of the Kenya Wildlife Service handed the country a number that breaks that story. Erustus Kanga told a Nairobi audience that his team could account for only 100 of more than 500 rhino calves born in 2023 and 2024. Four hundred calves are missing from the record.
He spoke at the African premiere of a rhino documentary, the sort of event where good news is expected. This article sets the admission beside the rest of the record: ivory crossing southern border towns, a court monitoring study that found almost half of the ivory prosecutions it watched showed signs of compromise, a whistleblower dossier, a poisoning and a missing ranger. It also sets it beside a contract renewal that ignored all of it. Together these describe an agency that cannot show its work.
The Four Hundred Calves
Kanga said Kenya recorded over 280 rhino births in 2023 and more than 260 in 2024. He then said he tasked his team to account for the over 500 calves, and that they could account for only 100. On the Star’s arithmetic, that leaves 400 calves unaccounted for.
Kanga attributed the losses to territorial fights, which are common among black rhinos. Males, he said, often kill calves that are not theirs. He told the audience no calf should die and that every rhino mother must see her calf reach maturity.
The fights are real. Earlier reporting on KWS data, carried by the Daily Nation, put territorial fights at almost 30 percent of rhino deaths over five years, ahead of disease at about 15 percent and poaching at about 8 percent. But the admission on Saturday is about something else. It is about records. An agency that says its rhinos are the crown of its conservation record could not say what happened to four fifths of two years of calves.
There are only a few explanations. The calves died and nobody documented it. They were born and never properly monitored. Or the agency’s own counting is unreliable. Each is an accountability failure. If calves died in fights, KWS knew the risk and did not track the outcome. If they were never tracked, the headline population figures deserve harder questions. Either way the public has been given a cause of death, fights, for animals whose fates the agency says it cannot verify.
A Success Story With A Space Problem
None of this erases real progress. Kanga told the audience that Kenya held about 20,000 black rhinos in 1970, fell below 400 by the late 1980s, and reached 1,147 by the end of 2025. Kenya safeguards about 78 percent of the world’s eastern black rhinos. The target is 2,000 by 2037.
He also said several established sanctuaries have reached or exceeded their carrying capacity, which is the number of rhinos their habitat can sustain. That is the core of the problem. Space is running out, and overcrowding drives the fights that kill calves.
KWS points to expansion. On January 16, 2024, an operation moved 21 black rhinos from Nairobi National Park, Ol Pejeta and Lewa to Loisaba, ending an absence of about half a century. Nine calves have been born there, six male and three female, taking the population to 30, a 42.9 percent increase. On December 9, 2025, the state opened the Tsavo West Rhino Sanctuary, described as the world’s largest black rhino sanctuary at 3,200 square kilometres. It combined about 150 rhinos from Ngulia, which occupies just 92 square kilometres, with about 50 in an adjoining protection zone.
That is progress and it deserves credit. But the timeline raises a hard question. The pressure on Ngulia was known for years, and calves born in 2023 and 2024 were growing up inside a crowded system while the larger sanctuary was still being built. Expansion arrived after the losses, not before them. And KWS now says it needs sustained investment, with sponsors and conservancy partners already deeply involved in the rhino effort. Anyone asked to pay more is entitled to see the records on what happened to the calves already born.
History adds to the caution. In 2018, ten of eleven black rhinos moved to Tsavo East died after a botched translocation. The Cabinet Secretary then found clear negligence, fired the acting director and suspended other officials. A programme that depends on moving more rhinos into new ranges needs a leadership that can be trusted to run it.
The Ivory Corridor That Never Closes
Rhinos are one side of the ledger. Ivory is the other.
On March 28, 2026, KWS investigators arrested Nyamawi Rwanda Kulemba in Lunga Lunga on a motorcycle carrying four tusks weighing 39 kilogrammes. A press release followed and enforcement moved on. By official measure it was a success. By any honest measure it was a symptom.
Lunga Lunga, on the highway linking Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, has become the most visible node in a trafficking corridor that has grown more active since 2023. In November 2023, three men were caught trying to sell 59.2 kilogrammes to an undercover buyer. In January 2024, two women were arrested 30 kilometres east of the town with 112 kilogrammes in a van registered to a police officer. In October 2024, two men on a motorcycle were stopped with 58 kilogrammes. In January 2025, suspects fled and abandoned 15 tusks weighing 106 kilogrammes and a Tanzania registered motorcycle. They were never found. In March 2026 came Kulemba.
That is five seizures in one corridor across 28 months, each treated as a standalone win. None triggered a serious inquiry into how ivory keeps reaching the same border town by the same methods.
The pattern repeats elsewhere. Migori, near the Isebania crossing into Tanzania, recorded two seizures in August 2025 alone, with further arrests of Tanzanian nationals in November 2024 and December 2025. At Namanga, on the busy Nairobi to Arusha route, two Tanzanian nationals were arrested at a hotel in January 2026 with 110 kilogrammes of ivory in two Tanzania registered vehicles, plus a weighing machine. Investigators said the ivory was believed to have come from Malawi, with a link to Zambia. What officials did not explain is how foreign nationals driving loaded vehicles reached one of the continent’s busiest border posts without triggering an alert.
Kenya does not publish consolidated national ivory seizure statistics. Court monitoring data shows at least 2,037 kilogrammes seized across 71 incidents in 2023 and 1,521 kilogrammes across 45 incidents in 2024, which is only the detected fraction. Transnational networks do not move one giant consignment. They aggregate small loads carried by low level couriers and feed them into collection points near embarkation ports. The 106 kilogrammes abandoned in Kwale and the 110 kilogrammes at Namanga look like feeder deliveries into a stockpile the agency has not located in over a decade.
What Two Years Of Watching Courts Found
The strongest evidence of institutional failure comes from outside KWS. The Nairobi based watchdog SEEJ AFRICA monitored 125 ivory trafficking prosecutions across 21 law courts between March 2023 and March 2025, attending 774 sittings and recording testimony from over 200 witnesses.
Of 72 cases that concluded, 44 ended in conviction, 21 in acquittal and seven were terminated or withdrawn. The conviction rate was 61 percent, which sounds acceptable until the integrity findings are read. SEEJ found 18 cases compromised on a balance of probabilities and a further 41 showing the marks of prosecution subversion. That is 59 of 127 cases either confirmed as corrupted or strongly indicated as tampered with. Nearly half the caseload bore fingerprints of interference.
KWS was the lead agency in at least 98 of the 125 cases, and its headquarters investigative team led or supported 44 seizures from Busia and Meru to Nanyuki, Narok, Machakos, Kajiado and Maralal. When cases collapse, the trail leads back to it. The study said many KWS staff dedicate their lives to wildlife protection, and also that it would be naive to believe some elements within the organisation, including management, do not operate outside the rule of law. SEEJ founder Chris Morris told Mongabay that in eleven years in Kenya he has seen no sign that KWS investigates arrests to the next level, and that if it does, the evidence has never reached a court.
Ivory That Changes Before It Reaches A Judge
The most disturbing findings concern the exhibits. In a Kibera case, elephant tusks were swapped for hippo teeth after arrest, and five years passed before the first witness testified. In a Kahawa case, an ivory piece became elephant hip bone on the charge sheet. In a Nanyuki case, a KWS officer announced a seizure of 76 kilogrammes but the charge sheet read 69.2. In another, the charge sheet recorded 87.1 kilogrammes while the street value was calculated on 81.7. Nine cases showed a gap between the weight first reported and the weight before the court. The report asked whether a court would tolerate that if the contraband were heroin and over three kilogrammes had gone missing through weighing errors.
Chain of custody is a systemic weakness. Exhibits must be produced at every hearing where an arresting witness testifies, which can mean KWS moving ivory to court more than ten times in a trial. A Kibera case involving 216.76 kilogrammes saw exhibits produced at least four times, and a Voi case with 209.5 kilogrammes saw six. Every transit is a chance for loss or tampering.
Networks Protected, Suspects Who Vanish
Ten cases confirmed as compromised were linked to transnational criminal organisations, five of them to a West African group based in Kampala. The 2015 Mombasa port seizure of 3,127 kilogrammes hidden in a container of tea leaves bound for Thailand is the clearest example. Over an eight year trial, no admissible evidence was presented against six of the nine accused. Search protocols were ignored, witness statements were not taken, and key exhibits never reached court. SEEJ concluded that highly placed people had almost certainly manipulated the case. All nine were acquitted.
In another case, a Guinean man described as a deputy in the West African network was released mid trial under a deportation order signed by the Interior Cabinet Secretary. A Safaricom liaison officer who could have supplied phone data never testified. Seventeen cases saw suspects flee during arrest operations, at least 30 escapees in all. In July 2025, Julius Abluu Adika and five co accused were acquitted after an eight year trial over 217 kilogrammes seized in 2017. Two Tanzanians arrested near Mombasa in November 2024, Paulo Kuya Moson and Paulo Telek Lazier, absconded mid trial with warrants still outstanding.
At least 74 arrests came from intelligence whose source was never disclosed in court. In one case, hearings failed to proceed twice after KWS investigators noticed SEEJ monitors in the room. Scrutiny itself was treated as a threat.
A Contract Renewed On A Phone Call
Against this record, Kanga’s tenure was renewed. A Gazette notice gave effect to his reappointment from August 21, under Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano. Our reporting found that board members who had reportedly viewed him as too costly fell into line after a described call from State House. Internally he is seen as a one man show, an authoritative manager who concentrates decisions in his own hands.
A board exists to check a chief executive. When dissenters reportedly go quiet after a call from the top, it has not done its job. No performance review has been published, and nothing has explained why a leader presiding over these findings deserved another term. The admission about the calves came days after the renewal took effect.
The Dossier, The Corruption Label And The Tenders
The renewal followed a whistleblower dossier of 28 specific allegations. It described financial irregularities in procurement, manipulation of disciplinary processes to shield favoured officers, suppression of operational intelligence that would have produced higher value arrests, and retaliation against staff who reported concerns. Its weight came from its specificity. The response was to treat it as a communications problem, with no independent review and no suspension of a senior officer.
The Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission has separately named KWS as Kenya’s most corrupt institution. Two procurement controversies illustrate why. The Pesapass revenue collection tender raised questions about who handles park revenue and on what terms, and the staff medical insurance tender drew scrutiny over process and value. Neither has been answered with published tender documents, evaluation reports or conflict of interest declarations.
Amboseli, Cyanide And The Missing Tusks
In July 2026, elephants began dying at Amboseli. The official toll was 14, and cyanide was cited. Kanga offered an explanation involving contaminated tomatoes. Test results then pointed in different directions, with the Government Chemist and a university laboratory producing conflicting findings, and allegations surfaced that mining might be connected. InsideKE reported on September 26 that a pest control lobby has challenged the cyanide theory while the elephant death report remains unreleased. Kajiado County disputed the KWS toll and declared a One Health emergency, and the county and agency remain in a standoff over Amboseli revenue.
One question has never been answered. Where are the tusks? Advocate Ndegwa Njiru demanded that Kanga say whether the ivory from the dead elephants was recovered, and the number under discussion had risen to 15. Standard practice is prompt recovery, logging and secure custody with a documented chain. Confirming it would take one paragraph.
This article does not claim any Amboseli tusks were stolen. It says the agency has had months to say where they are and has not said. Given ivory that changes weight between seizure and charge sheet, and exhibits that became hippo teeth, an unexplained gap in custody cannot be waved away.
The Ranger Who Disappeared And The Records That Do Not Exist
The case of ranger Brian Odhiambo remains the gravest human accountability question. Odhiambo disappeared, and the matter has been before an inquest and a trial in Nakuru. KWS Assistant Director Emmanuel Koech, the agency’s own investigations chief, testified that no KWS records show proper procedures were followed.
That echoes the calf admission. In both cases the head of an agency, or its investigator, has told the public that the paper trail is missing. It sits alongside Kanga’s appearance before Parliament over informants and an alleged mass grave, and InsideKE reporting on how Nakuru officials tried to present the death of Cpl Leonard Ochieng as suicide before a government pathologist’s report said otherwise. Armed rangers were also reported to have obstructed a court inspection at Nairobi National Park.
Land, Petitions And Foreign Partners
The same opacity runs through KWS’s asset decisions. The proposed relocation of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage towards Bomas raised a land question that has never been settled publicly. A petition challenges construction inside Nairobi National Park. Under Kanga, the service has also expanded foreign partnerships, including the Archipelagus deal covering Lake Turkana’s Sibiloi and Central Island, plans involving Tsavo carbon credits and hotel development, and the Northern Rangelands Trust precedent. Activists ask where the money has gone, what the agreements actually say, and whether the pattern amounts to neocolonialism. Partnerships can help conservation. Secret partnerships help someone else.
In Fairness
KWS has real achievements. Black rhino numbers have grown from a few hundred to 1,147. A conservancy chairperson at the premiere credited the sector with recording zero rhino poaching in 2020 for the first time in over two decades. Loisaba and Tsavo West are genuine wins, and the 2037 target is worth pursuing.
But success in the field does not cancel failure in the office. An agency can breed rhinos and still lose track of four hundred calves. It can cut poaching and still fail to protect its own rangers. It can open the world’s largest black rhino sanctuary and still be unable to explain what happened to ivory in its custody.
The Accountability Gaps
The first gap is records. The calf admission, the Koech testimony and the Amboseli tusk silence describe an agency whose paperwork cannot be trusted or produced.
The second is oversight. A board that bent after a State House call is not an independent check, and a renewal without a published review is a decision without evidence.
The third is disclosure. Amboseli laboratory results, tusk custody records, tender files, partnership agreements and seizure statistics could all be published. None has been in full.
The fourth is consequence. The EACC label, the dossier, the SEEJ findings and a sworn admission of missing records have produced no suspension and no independent review.
The fifth is planning. Overcrowding was predictable, and the calves were born into it.
What Must Happen Next
Parliament should summon the Director General and demand a written account of every calf born in 2023 and 2024, with location, sex, sanctuary and cause of death where applicable. The Cabinet Secretary should publish the basis for the renewal, including any performance review. An independent body should investigate the whistleblower dossier and audit KWS intelligence records against the seizure timeline. The DPP should account for every major ivory prosecution that collapsed or ended in acquittal. KWS should publish national ivory seizure statistics and say where the Amboseli tusks are. And courts should be allowed to inspect sites without armed obstruction.
None of this is radical. It is what accountable public management looks like.
Calves cannot ask why they died, and elephants cannot ask where their tusks went. Kenyans can, and the man who told a room of conservationists that four hundred calves are unaccounted for should be made to answer.
Alarm raised as hundreds of rhino calves die in territorial fights
by Gilbert Koech The Star September 27, 2026
The Kenya Wildlife Service has raised concerns over a spike in rhino territorial fights that threatens to wipe out calves.
KWS Director General Erustus Kanga on Saturday said even though the interventions that have been put in place has seen an increase in rhino populations particularly the black, rhino fights are now the new frontier that must be confronted.
“In 2023, we had over 280 rhino births in this country. In 2024, we recorded more than 260 rhino births,” Kanga said.
Kanga said he tasked his team to account for the over 500 rhino calves.
“Unfortunately, we could only account for 100.”
This means 400 rhino calves could not be accounted.
The DG said he tasked his team to ensure that measures are in place to see each rhino calf grow to maturity.
Kanga was making remarks at Trade Mark Hotel when Kenya hosted the African Premiere of RHINO for World Rhino.
The Tom Hardy-narrated documentary screened in Nairobi September 26, united the rangers, KWS, conservancies and partners behind one of Africa’s defining conservation stories.
The premiere RHINO goes to the frontline of the fight to save one of the planet’s most threatened species, following the rangers, veterinarians and communities who stand between the rhino and extinction.
The documentary shows the hard work and resilience of rangers whose work usually goes unseen.
The premiere was organised by Loisaba Conservancy, with lead sponsorship from Elewana Collection, Borana Conservancy, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Trademark Hotel, Dry Associates, Tusk Trust and the Pankaj Foundation.
They were joined by the Kenya Wildlife Service and partners including Il Ngwesi, Solio, Sera Conservancy, Save the Rhino, Rhino Ark, the international Ranger Federation, Game Rangers Association and Big Life Foundation a coalition that spans the length of Kenya’s rhino landscape.
Kanga attributed the deaths of rhino calves to territorial fights which are common especially in black rhinos.
He said rhino males will often kill the calves that does not belong to them.
“And we are saying, no calf should die. Every rhino mother must see their rhino calf to maturity.”
Kanga said for generations, the country has put in place measures aimed at protecting the iconic species.
The DG said the eastern black rhino was part of Kenya’s wild landscapes.
“By 1970, Kenya held an estimated 20,000 black rhinos. Then came the devastating trophy hunting and poaching of the 1970s and 1980s, driven by the international horn trade.”
Kanga said by the late 1980s, fewer than 400 remained.
“Within one generation, Kenya had lost approximately 98 percent of its black rhinos. We stood perilously close to losing an irreplaceable part of ourselves.”
Kanga said the fight to save them had already begun with Solio pioneered sanctuary protection in 1970.
“As the crisis deepened, Kenya adopted intensive management: gathering scattered survivors into secure sanctuaries where they could be protected and breed. Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary was established in Tsavo West in 1986 and became a cornerstone of this effort.”
Kanga said with the establishment of KWS in 1989, that resolve gained stronger institutional foundations.
“Successive generations of rangers, scientists and veterinarians, working with landowners, communities and conservation partners, rebuilt populations animal by animal. They persevered through danger and setbacks.
By the end of 2025, Kenya’s black rhino population had reached 1,147. Kenya safeguards approximately 78 percent of the world’s eastern black rhinos. The species remains critically endangered; recovery demands continued vigilance.”
Kanga said the protection of the species now needs space as several established sanctuaries have reached or exceeded their ecological carrying capacity: the number of rhinos their habitat can sustainably support.
“Expanding secure habitat lets us build on this recovery, sustain breeding, and reduce competition and fatal territorial fighting.”
On January 16, 2024, an operation to translocate 21 black rhinos from Nairobi National Park, Ol Pejeta and Lewa to Loisaba was launched.
Their return ended an absence of approximately half a century.
Kanga said nine healthy calves, six male and three female, have since been born, bringing the population to 30: a 42.9 percent increase since reintroduction.
Each calf reflects the planning, protection and partnerships that made this return possible.
On 9th December 2025, the state opened The Tsavo West Rhino Sanctuary, the world’s largest black rhino sanctuary, covering 3,200 square kilometres.
This expansion grew directly from Ngulia’s success and the ecological pressures within its 92 square kilometres.
It brought together approximately 150 rhinos from Ngulia and 50 in the adjoining intensive protection zone, opening a much larger landscape for recovery.
Through the Kenya Rhino Range Expansion initiative and our partners, we are restoring Tsavo’s status as the world’s greatest eastern black rhino stronghold.
Tsavo West is also recording encouraging breeding success, with new calves strengthening its recovering population.
Kanga said the goal is to have 2,000 black rhinos by 2037, a move that needs sustained investment, sound science and communities that benefit through employment, tourism and enterprise.
Sophie Kinyua, Chairperson of Loisaba Conservancy called for a shared commitment, long-term investment and partnership between communities and governments to ensure long term protection of the species.
Kinyua lauded efforts that have been put in place to ensure that the country recorded zero rhino poaching for the first time in more than two decades in 2020.
Loisaba Conservancy Chief Executive Officer Tom Silvester said Kenya has an extraordinary rhino conservation story to tell.
“This event is a chance to celebrate the people behind that success and to remind the world that conservation works when we come together.”
