A herd of elephants invading a farm. [Photo|businesstoday.co.ke]
Farmers in the country have been advised on the 'safest' way to keep away stray elephants from their farms.
According to Nicodemus Kivindyo, the chairman of Wildlife Conservation and Compensation Committee, farmers near game parks and reserves should cordon off their farms with beehives to stop wild elephants from rampaging through their farms.
Speaking in Makueni County, Kivindyo noted that elephants were a major cause of human-wildlife conflict, and asked farmers to keep bees to keep off the animals.
"Those from areas without an electric perimeter fence around the parks should install beehives around their farms," he said.
The official explained that the beehive boxes are connected with a rope to the barbed wire fence. When the elephants try to enter, they push at the fence and shake the beehives, causing the bees to swarm out in a fearsome cloud of buzz and sting the invading jumbos.
"The animals are unlikely to forget the venomous sting which will make them not to come back," he said
Kivindyo was speaking at Kibwezi Town during a workshop on reducing human-wildlife conflict.
"KWS and the county government have embarked on plans to erect an electric fence around Chyullu Hills and Tsavo East national parks," he further reported.
Most farmers in the country have decried rising cases of elephants raiding their farms leaving them counting loses.
"The marauding elephants destroy farm structures, water pipes, crops, anything they come across. We fear that the animals might get more destructive and kill people,” Cromwell Mwachai, a resident of Voi, Taita Taveta County told Daily Nation recently.