Kenya Marks Wildlife Day as New Census Shows Cheetah, Wild Dog Numbers Halved in Four Years
Kenya marked World Wildlife Day at Rimoi National Reserve in Elgeyo Marakwet County, with the Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Rebecca Miano, calling on communities, youth, the private sector, and conservation partners to step up protection of the country’s fast-disappearing wildlife.
Her urgent call comes against the backdrop of alarming new data indicating that the country’s cheetah and wild dog populations have each declined by roughly 50 per cent in just four years, while lion numbers continue to fall, according to Kenya’s 2024–2025 National Wildlife Census released in December 2025.
“I am excited to invite all Kenyans, communities, youth, institutions, conservation partners, the private sector and even herbalists to join us in commemorating this year’s World Wildlife Day,” the Cabinet Secretary said in a statement, describing the need to make Kenya a global tourism destination
The 2026 celebration came under the theme “Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Conserving Health, Heritage and Livelihoods” a departure from previous years’ big cat focus, reflecting a broader push to recognize the role of plant life in sustaining ecosystems, economies, and human well-being.
The census, conducted by the Wildlife Research and Training Institute (WRTI) in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and a wide range of partners, warned that without urgent intervention, Kenya faces irreversible ecosystem collapse within the next decade. It recommended immediate enactment of the Wildlife Conservation Bill 2025 and amendments to the Wildlife Act 2013.
The figures represent a dramatic deterioration from the baselines recorded in Kenya’s first National Strategy for the Conservation and Management of Lions, Spotted Hyenas, Cheetahs, and Wild Dogs, which ran from 2009 to 2014. That strategy recorded approximately 1,160 cheetahs, 1,970 lions, and 845 wild dogs, figures that were already considered a conservation crisis at the time.
Across Africa, the picture is equally grave. Lion populations on the continent have declined by 43 per cent over the past two decades and now occupy only eight per cent of their historical range, with an estimated 20,000 individuals remaining. The global cheetah population has collapsed from an estimated 100,000 in the early twentieth century to approximately 6,500 today, according to the most recent IUCN assessment.
Conservationists identify five primary drivers of the crisis in Kenya, Human-wildlife conflict, including retaliatory killing of carnivores by herders, Habitat loss, land fragmentation, and conversion to agriculture, Loss of wild prey, Disease, Poaching and illegal trade.
Infrastructure development has emerged as a significant new threat since the 2009 strategy was drafted roads, fences, and settlement patterns have severed wildlife corridors that carnivores depend on for range and breeding.
Eighty per cent of Kenya’s cheetahs live outside protected areas, making them especially vulnerable to land-use change and community-level conflict. “The same amount of land that can support up to 800 lions can only support 30 to 50 cheetahs,” said the president reflecting the species’ exceptional spatial requirements.
World Wildlife Day is observed annually on March 3, the date the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was signed in 1973. It was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2013 through Resolution A/RES/68/205, with the CITES Secretariat serving as global facilitator.
The government, through the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, has been working with private and community conservancies to address carnivore losses. However, conservationists said the pace of intervention had not matched the rate of decline, and called on communities, policymakers, and the private sector to escalate action before populations decline beyond recovery.
