Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) on Friday launched a major manhunt for poachers who killed two rhinos and a calf in Naivasha, about 90 km northwest of the capital Nairobi.

KWS Corporate Affairs Manager Paul Udoto said the operation has been launched after armed poachers broke into Oserian private sanctuary and killed the rhinos amid rising demand for ivory in Asian countries.

"An operation to arrest poachers is underway following the killing of two rhinos and a calf in Naivasha at about 2:00 a.m. (local time) this morning," Udoto said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

He however said the KWS rangers who were on night patrol early Friday when armed poachers invaded the sanctuary reacted swiftly and deterred them from taking away the rhino horns which they were in the process of removing.

"The director of KWS and his team are committed to enforcing the wildlife law to the letter and will not be cowed by actions of criminals hell-bent on destroying Kenya's wildlife resources for individual gain," Udoto said.

He said the KWS rangers countrywide have been put on high alert to safeguard this heritage which has suffered in the recent past due to poaching.

"We are calling upon the public to volunteer information that can help our security systems to end this poaching problem," he said.

Conservationists said rising demand for ivory and rhino horn in Asia has caused a poaching crisis in recent years across Kenya in particular and Africa as a whole with over 1,000 rhinos having been killed on the continent in the last 18 months.

The KWS has enhanced the round-the-clock surveillance at all Kenya's entry exit and entry points while sniffer dogs and their handlers have proved incorruptible and have once again outsmarted the smugglers.

The East African nation says it's at a point where it cannot allow further poaching of wildlife because the animal numbers have been reducing at an alarming rate.

Most recent statistics from the KWS for instance indicate that the number of elephants for instance has reduced from a high of 160,000 in the 1970s to below 30,000.

KWS said between the 1970s and the 1980s Kenya lost over 80 percent of its elephants, mainly due to intensive poaching of elephants for ivory.

The East African nation has also lost 21 rhinos and 117 elephants to poachers since the beginning of 2013. Out of these elephants, he said, 37 were killed in protected areas while 80 outside protected areas.

Kenya lost 289 elephants to poaching in 2011 and another 384 elephants in 2012. Lion is also one of the most endangered animals not only in Kenya, but across Africa.

Kenya has an estimated 1,800 lions, down from 2,800 in 2002. The country had 30,000 lions in the 1960s, KWS data reveals.

The elephants horns are sawn off and ground into a powder which is taken as a curative in most countries in Asia, despite no scientific evidence of medicinal properties.

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