In September 2013, a Stimson team visited Tsavo West National Park, home to the Ngulia Rhino sanctuary that holds over 60 of Kenya’s 650 black rhinos. These creatures, as well as Tsavo’s elephants, had recently come under increased threat from poachers. Since the summer, the park had lost some two dozen elephants and several rhinos. In fact, only days prior to Stimson’s fact-finding mission, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) park rangers had ambushed four suspected poachers, killing three of them during
an extended gun fight. The KWS described conditions in Kenya’s wildlife parks as a war, and they were currently losing it.