Juja residents will now be paid Ksh20,000 for every hyena they hunt down in a renewed fight against the animals that have been roaming the villages of Nyacaba, Malaba, Athi, Juja Farm, Muthaara, Magomano, and Mukuyu, among others.
Kiambu leaders led by Juja Member of Parliament (MP) George Koimburi and his Githunguri counterpart Gathoni Wamuchomba promised to start paying locals for every hyena they kill to suppress the vicious attacks that the marauding predators have been meting on them.
The leaders who spoke during a prayer service in Nyacaba village, on Monday, September 9, 2024, in remembrance of the five-year-old boy who was fatally attacked by a hyena last week claimed that despite crackdowns by the authorities, including the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) officers, the carnivores are still roaming the villages, reigning terror to the locals.
“We will start killing the hyenas and after that present their dead bodies to the relevant ministries. The youth will be given money to kill the hyenas. Every hyena killed will earn the killers Ksh20,000,” Wamuchomba stated.
They noted that this is not the first attack in the village, as scores of residents have perished in the jaws of the hyenas and others left with life-threatening injuries.
Early this year, a 10-year-old Dennis Teya was mauled to death by the hounds in the neighbouring Gwa Kigwi village.
So far, six people, including minors, have been killed in Juja in the past ten months, with locals claiming that besides the loss of innocent lives to the animals, their livestock have not been spared either, noting that they have lost hundreds of their livestock to the carnivores.
“Anyone who kills the hyenas will take home Ksh20,000. No one will question you for killing the killer animals. When an animal attacks you at your home, you have to defend yourself,” Koimburi added.
“A time has come for us to take the law into our own hands. However much we build schools and hospitals here in Witeithie, unless we deal with the hyena menace, then we will be doing nothing,” Ngugi Mwibiri, the Witeithie Ward Member of County Assembly (MCA), stated.
Last week, Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Rebecca Miano noted that the hyena menace around the Juja area had reached unacceptable levels, expressing her pain following the recent loss of two children in the area to the hungry hyenas.
“The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) personnel are on the ground to ensure no more lives are lost to wild animals. I have directed KWS to mop up all hyenas from the Juja area as fast as humanly possible and demonstrate to the residents of the area affected that this will be a thing of the past after September 2024,” Miano said.
CS Miano at the same time authorised a 24-hour KWS surveillance in the Juja area to ensure that no other life is lost forthwith.
KWS Assistant Director Joseph Dadacha is currently leading a team of officers stationed at a camp near Tropical Farm in Nyacaba in a mission to capture the rogue hyenas before more lives are lost.
