Kenya must invest in wildlife research

NAIROBI: Because they are far bigger than humans, elephants should be dying of diseases like cancer more than humans. But the reverse is true — less than five per cent of elephants die of cancer, compared to 11 to 25 per cent in people. These were the recent findings of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What amazed me about this study is not really the staggering revelation. It struck me that such a huge wildlife study was conducted in the US, which is not even a natural home of elephants. It’s like a Kenyan university producing a monumental study on tigers.