Rangers working with the Kenya Wildlife Service lifted 1,430 wire snares in a single month, and that number is the clearest measure of what anti-poaching work in Kenya actually consists of. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust published its Anti-Poaching Report for September 2026 on November 10, covering teams that patrolled 29,940 kilometers, seized 401 kilograms of bushmeat and made 57 arrests over the month.
A snare is a loop of wire anchored to a tree or a fence line. It costs nothing, it is set in minutes, and it does not distinguish between the animal it was meant for and the one that walks into it. Lifting 1,430 of them is not a dramatic operation. It is thousands of hours of walking, and it is the reason this report reads as a list rather than a story.
What 57 arrests were actually for
The breakdown matters more than the total, because it shows what pressure on a protected area looks like when you itemize it. Of the 57 arrests and cautions, 23 were for bushmeat poaching and eight for illegal entry into protected areas. Seven were for charcoal burning and seven for illegal grazing. Five were for illegal logging, three for firewood collection, two for illegal miraa plantations, one for illegal fishing and one for possession of bushmeat.
Twenty-five of those 57 involve taking or holding an animal: the 23 for bushmeat poaching, one for illegal fishing and one for possession of bushmeat. The other 32 are people cutting wood, burning charcoal, grazing cattle or planting a crop inside a protected area, which is a different problem with different solutions, and it is the larger half of the column.
Alongside the arrests, the teams seized 401 kilograms of bushmeat and 105 bushmeat carcasses, destroyed two charcoal camps, 26 charcoal kilns and eight sacks of charcoal, and dismantled two illegal livestock bomas. They seized 67 kilograms of honey, recorded 136 illegally logged trees and destroyed 43 illegal hides, harbors and camps.
The elephant figures
During September the teams found five elephant carcasses and recovered 85.9 kilograms of ivory, comprising 11 tusks and five additional pieces of ivory. The Trust’s report does not attribute a cause of death to the five, and we are not going to supply one it did not state. Recovering ivory and finding a carcass are separate events that can be weeks or years apart, because tusks are recovered from old remains as well as recent ones.
The teams also supported work that is not enforcement at all: human-wildlife conflict missions, veterinary treatments, firefighting and orphan rescues. That overlap is the point of keeping ground teams in the field rather than only in the air. The Trust’s Aerial Unit report for the same month covered the Maktau bushfire and two rhino operations, and the ground teams are who an aircraft is directing when it finds something.
Which zoos fund this?
We looked, and we could not verify funding from any accredited zoological institution for the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s anti-poaching teams. The partnership the Trust names for this work is with the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Kenyan government agency that manages the country’s national parks and reserves, and the teams operate as joint SWT/KWS units rather than as a private patrol.
There is a reason that answer is unlikely to change, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving as an absence. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust publishes a position opposing the capture of infant elephants for captivity. That is a real disagreement with part of the zoo world, and it sits underneath any question about zoo funding for its field operations. We report it because a funder trace that quietly omits the reason for a negative result is not much of a trace.
The work itself is not in dispute. The Trust has run these teams in partnership with KWS for more than 25 years, and 1,430 snares is 1,430 snares whoever paid for the boots.
Why a monthly report is worth reading
Because the alternative is a year of silence punctuated by the occasional rescue that photographs well. We have covered the single dramatic snare removal, and those stories are true but they are not representative. The monthly ledger is. It shows a protected area under steady, unglamorous pressure from people mostly looking for firewood, grazing and meat, and a team whose main achievement in any given month is a very large number of removed wire loops.
Quick answers
- How many snares did the anti-poaching teams lift in September 2026?
1,430. The SWT/KWS Anti-Poaching Teams also patrolled 29,940 kilometers, seized 401 kilograms of bushmeat and 105 bushmeat carcasses, and made 57 arrests and cautions over the month.
- What were the 57 arrests for?
23 for bushmeat poaching, 8 for illegal entry into protected areas, 7 for charcoal burning, 7 for illegal grazing, 5 for illegal logging, 3 for firewood collection, 2 for illegal miraa plantations, 1 for illegal fishing and 1 for possession of bushmeat.
- How much ivory was recovered?
85.9 kilograms, comprising 11 tusks and five additional pieces of ivory. The teams also found five elephant carcasses during the month. The report does not state a cause of death for them.
- Who operates the anti-poaching teams?
They are joint SWT/KWS teams, run by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, the government agency that manages Kenya's national parks and reserves. The Trust says its rangers have worked on this for more than 25 years.
- Which zoos fund the Sheldrick anti-poaching teams?
We could not verify funding from any accredited zoological institution. The only partner the Trust names for this work is the Kenya Wildlife Service. The Trust also publishes a position opposing the capture of infant elephants for captivity, which is a real point of disagreement with part of the zoo world.
- What is a snare?
A loop of wire anchored to a tree or fence line that tightens on whatever walks into it. It is cheap and quick to set, and it does not distinguish between the target animal and any other, which is why removing them in bulk is a large part of ranger work.
