World Notes POACHING

The killers often attack under cover of darkness, shooting their victims in cold blood and hacking off their horns before disappearing into the night. In Kenya's Meru National Park two weeks ago, 30 heavily armed poachers slaughtered five rhinoceroses and traded gunfire with park wardens before making their getaway.

The incident, in which at least two wardens were wounded, was the latest skirmish in a war that has pitted a growing army of rhino and elephant poachers against an outgunned force of rangers and police. The lure for poachers is great: prized in Asia as an aphrodisiac and in Yemen for making dagger handles, a single rhino horn can fetch as much as $24,000.

Meanwhile, the legal market for elephant ivory is on the increase. "Our fear is that the recent resurgence in heavy poaching of elephants may spill over onto black rhino," says David Western, director of Wildlife Conservation International. In Kenya alone the black-rhino population has dwindled from 20,000 in 1970 to only 450 today.

After poachers killed three rangers last August, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi issued a shoot-on-sight policy. But wildlife experts are concerned that as long as trade in ivory and rhino horn continues, the government is destined to lose its battle to stop the butchery.