Nyeri residents have urged the government to come up with a mechanism of feeding wildlife as a way of curbing human-wildlife conflict resulting from invasion of wild animals into agricultural farms in search of pasture.
The residents who included farmers who border the Aberdare National Park, Solio Ranch and Hombe forest, have argued that while little effort is being spared in rehabilitating degraded forests, similar effort should be made to ensure that the wildlife do not leave their protected area in search of food.
They now want the Ministry of Wildlife and Tourism and the Kenya Wildlife Service to consider planting food in the forests and national parks as a way of ensuring that the wildlife is contained in their restricted areas. "Everyone is currently working hard to plant trees in the forests but I have yet to come across any initiative calling on Kenyans to plant fruit trees or any food in our forests or game reserves for the sake of our wildlife.
This is something that should be urgently considered because when these animals invade our homes or farms, they do so in search of food, so we must start to think of ways of giving them food if we want to reduce incidents of human-wildlife conflict," said Moses Ndegwa a resident of Ruring'u.
