Police has said it has since the beginning of the year registered 54 cases of poaching in Murchison Falls National Park.
Speaking during a press conference in Gulu on Monday, the Aswa region police spokesman Jimmy Patrick Okema said 84 suspected poachers were arrested between January and August this year. Out of the 84, Okema revealed, 34 were convicted and jailed for violating the Wild Life Act by entering and killing animals gazetted area.
The police spokesman revealed that some of the suspects were arrested with smoked wild meat, snares, guns and other deadly weapons that can injure, capture or kill protected animal species.
Most of the poachers, the police spokesman said, were from Nwoya district.
Wild meat is a delicacy in northern Uganda, driving up demand, prompting poachers to read from the lucrative but illegal business.
A kilo of game meat can go up to as much as 35,000 shillings while a kilo of beef is only 10,000 shillings or in some cases even 8,000.
Early this month, Amuru Grade Magistrate’s Court presided over by Angole Joseph fined eight poachers and ordered them to pay ten million shillings for killing a Uganda Kob.
The Kob appears on Uganda’s court of arms to represent the east African nation’s abundant wildlife.
The poachers were charged with five counts among them; illegally entering area gazetted for wildlife, killing protect species, entering the park without authority and being in possession of deadly weapon among others.
Tom Okello Obong, the Area Murchison Falls National Park blamed the rampant illegal killings of wild animals on the rise in the demand of game meat in restaurants major towns like Gulu, Masindi and Nwoya.
Local authorities in Nwoya district have on several occasions warned communities against poaching at Murchison Falls National Park advising that the act is illegal.
Patrick Okello Oryema, the LC5 chairperson, noted that hunting in such a gazetted areas is risky.
At least five poachers were killed by wild animals inside Murchison Falls National Game Park last year alone.
