Category: Cattle Rustlers | Date: Jul 01 2008 | By: Kimojino

This morning at 1:30am we received a phone call by one of the men who works for Earthview, John Saaya, to inform the security team that cattle rustling is taking place on the escarpment, and that they suspected the cattle to be driven across the park to Tanzania.

We coordinated with the Ngiro-are team and laid an ambush on both sides of Ngiro-are Stream. By then there was sporadic gunfire at the top of the escarpment near Kerinkani area, and we knew that these people were armed with automatic weapons. We suspect AK47s. We orientated ourselves to where the rustlers would pass and waited for almost one and a half hours.

After this time, the Ngiro-are team heard some movement about 100 metres away from them, just along the edge of the riverine forest. Immediately they tried to ascertain what was causing the movement and concluded there was cattle in the vicinity.

They started opening fire, but there was no fire returned by the rustlers. Instead they fled from the area leaving behind the cattle. It was impossible to follow the men because the land was covered by total darkness.

We retrieved 15 cattle, and the Maasai on the escarpment also recovered 6 cattle when exchanging fire. There are 5 very large oxens which are still missing. But we don’t think that they came down the escarpment, we believe the group was divided.

Rangers, and community with retrieved cattle this morning.

In this case the rustlers removed 50 cows, and split the cows into two groups. One of the groups had the 5 oxen, which are extremely valuable at about 18,000 Shillings. Then all of the other cows would be taken on another route to cause a diversion and eventually leave behind without a fight because they know they still have the most valuable of the cattle. 

Rangers from Ngiro-are are still working with the community to track the missing oxen.

Rangers and community.