One morning in 1999, Sir Francis Bacon came up to Anne’s house with an arrow embedded deeply in his side. Anne organized for a Kenya Wildlife Service veterinarian to come and surgically remove the arrowhead. Sir Francis successfully recovered and years later he died a natural death. His offspring still visit Anne at her cottage on a regular basis – one young male has even larger tusks than those of Sir Francis! Because of what happened to Sir Francis, Anne feared an increase in poaching activity and began to informally patrol the region searching for other injured animals. Anne’s fears were justified when she found several elephant, lion and giraffe that had become badly entangled in life threatening wire snares. These were embedded deeply into the animals’ limbs, and the elephants’ trunks, causing unfathomable pain and damage. Remarkably, once the wire snares were removed and the wounds treated, the animals were able to make a full recovery.

Profitable poaching to satisfy the commercial demand for elephant ivory and rhino horn has decimated the populations of these animals throughout Africa. Kenya has prided itself on leading the African nations in their battle against the ivory and rhino horn trade and bringing this cause to the world’s attention. There is now, however, an equally devastating form of poaching which threatens the very existence of all wildlife – the commercial bush meat trade, which is conducted at unsustainable levels both within, and outside, protected areas. It should be noted that the bush-meat trade is quite distinct from subsistence hunting by the local people, (which is also illegal in Kenya). The bush-meat trade could be compared to the drug trade – it is very organized and highly lucrative. It is not sustainable and Africa is losing its wildlife at an alarming pace.