Poachers shoot rhino dead in Nairobi park

Gunmen shot dead a white rhino in Nairobi's national park, a brazen raid in one of Kenya's best guarded sites, wildlife officials have said.

Amid a surge of rhino and elephant killings across the country, the shooting of the rhino in the heavily guarded Nairobi National Park illustrates how poachers are decimating the country's large animals.
(READ: Red flag raised over declining game numbers)

The park is the headquarters of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

According to KWS spokesman Paul Udoto, poachers, who killed the rhino late Friday, hacked out the horn from its head and escaped.

"It is the first such poaching incident in the park in the last six years," he said, adding it brings the total number of rhino killed this year to 35, already more than the 29 killed in Kenya in 2012.

Nairobi's national park, which lies just seven kilometres (four miles) from the tower blocks of the bustling centre, is described by KWS as "a unique ecosystem by being the only protected area in the world close to a capital city".

It is a major rhino sanctuary, and its previously believed secure environment -- fenced in for much of its 117 kilometres squared (45 miles squared) -- was seen as ideal for breeding and restocking other parks.

Poaching has risen sharply in Africa in recent years. Besides targeting rhinos, whole herds of elephants have been massacred for their ivory.

The lucrative Asian black market for rhino horn has driven a boom in poaching across Africa. (READ: Report links rise in poaching to Chinese workers)

Asian consumers falsely believe the horns, the same composition as fingernails, have powerful healing properties.

A series of large shipments of ivory has been seized in recent months, including two separate containers in Kenya's port of Mombasa in July, one with three tonnes and another of almost 1.5 tonnes of elephant ivory.
Daily Nation 13 August 2013