Residents in a Kenyan village went irate after an elephant killed a man who had survived a hyena attack three years earlier. According to Daily Nation, this recent incident adds up to the troubling human-wildlife conflicts in the county the fatal encounter occurred.
The deceased was said to be making his way home on March 1 when the elephant trampled him to death. In the wake of the fatal incident, residents in the village covered the deceased man’s body with the Kenyan flag and barred police from having access to it for hours. Their action was to register their displeasure over the Kenya Wildlife Service’s “lackluster” approach to tackling such incidents in the area.
The residents also asked the Wildlife Cabinet secretary to speak with them in the wake of the fatal encounter. They also wanted to kill the elephant. “We are tired of rampant attacks by elephants. The government has turned a blind ear to the plight of farmers in this region,” a resident said.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing tear gas after they collected the 72-year-old’s body. “He confronted a hyena that had attacked our livestock in 2020,” the man’s widow said. The deceased man sustained an injury on his left hand during that encounter.
