Lion kills 14-year-old girl, elephant kills man in separate incidents
A lion killed a 14-year-old girl outside Kenya’s capital Nairobi while an elephant killed a 54-year-old man in the central part of the country, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said this weekend.
The attack on the girl occurred on Saturday in a ranch to the south of Nairobi National Park.
The attack was witnessed by another teenager, who raised the alarm, the KWS said in a statement.
“KWS rangers and response teams were swiftly mobilized and traced bloodstains leading to the Mbagathi River, where the girl’s body was recovered with injuries on the lower back,” the conservation agency said in a statement.
“The lion was not sighted at the scene,” it added.
It said a trap had been set for the lion and teams deployed to comb the area, along with additional safety measures.
The KWS said a 54-year-old man had also been killed by an elephant in Kenya’s Nyeri County on Friday. The agency gave no further details about that incident.
“KWS conveys its heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families and continues to work closely with local law enforcement and communities to enhance the safety of people living near protected wildlife areas,” it said in the statement.
It called for more investment in “human-wildlife conflict mitigation”, including early warning systems and greater collaboration with affected communities.
In a statement to the BBC Paula Kahumbu, head of the WildlifeDirect conservation group, urged Kenya Wildlife Service to improve “risk assessments and ensure accurate, real-time communication of wildlife movement and behavior, especially in known high-risk areas such as Savannah Ranch,” where the girl was killed.
Last year, police in Kenya recovered the body of a man believed to have been attacked by a lion while he was riding a motorcycle near a national reserve in the south of the country.
The lion population was declining in Kenya just over a decade ago, primarily due to human-wildlife conflict. The government listed lions as endangered, with an estimated population of 2,000 in 2010. A more recent survey put the number at 2,489.
In 2023, 11 lions were speared to death in just one week — including one of Kenya’s oldest wild lions — by herders after the big cats killed their livestock.
Last year, the BBC reported CCTV footage captured the moment a lion snatched a Rottweiler dog from another home near Nairobi National Park
