WRTI Media Centre.

The Wildlife Research and Training Institute today published provisional population estimates from the 2023 National Wildlife Census, showing Kenya's elephant population has surpassed 36,000 individuals for the first time since the poaching crisis of the 1980s. The census, conducted across 18 ecosystem zones between August and November 2023, also recorded a black rhinoceros population of 1,014 — a 4.1% increase on 2022.

A new evidence brief from WRTI estimates the annual economic cost of human-wildlife conflict in Kenya at KES 3.8 billion, drawing on crop loss, livestock depredation, and human injury data from 18 counties. The brief, submitted to the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife in support of the 2023 HWC Framework, recommends a national compensation fund as a cost-effective mechanism to reduce retaliatory killing of wildlife.

WRTI's 2023 National Biodiversity Index assessment has recorded a 2.1-point decline in Kenya's savanna ecosystem health score, the largest annual decline recorded since the index was established in 2010. WRTI's Director of Research has called for an urgent cross-agency response, noting that the primary driver is identified as habitat fragmentation in three priority corridors.

Following the launch of Kenya's National Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Framework 2023, WRTI has published a technical note explaining the evidence base behind the Framework's key provisions, including the HWC economic analysis, conflict hotspot mapping methodology, and compensation tariff structure. This document is provided to support media and public understanding of the Framework.

WRTI's Annual Report and Accounts for 2022/23 documents a record year for WRTI's research outputs, with 47 new peer-reviewed publications, 18 new datasets published to the national database, and the completion of the 2022 national elephant and wildlife census. Training programmes trained 420 professionals across 18 cohorts.

WRTI and Kenya Wildlife Service today published the results of the 2022 National Wildlife Census. Kenya's elephant population stands at 35,500, representing a 34% increase over the 2012 figure of 26,800 and marking the 10th consecutive year of population growth since the anti-poaching measures of the 2010s took effect.

A 15-month monitoring assessment by WRTI documents the population impact of the 2021–2022 East Africa drought on Kenya's wildlife. The assessment — covering 8 species across 5 ecosystem zones — records the drought as the most significant single weather event to impact Kenya's wildlife population statistics since records began.