Kenya and Tanzanian security team have embarked in a joint operation to track down killers of a black rhino in the world's famous Maasai Mara.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) spokesman Paul Udoto said the move follows the discovery of a male rhino carcass with missing horns near Sand River barely 300 metres away the Kenya-Tanzania border by a Kenya Wildlife Service veterinary team conducting rhino ear-notching.

"From the state of the carcass, the rhino is likely to have been killed on Friday and appeared to have come from the Serengeti side in Tanzania as indicated by the trail in the disturbed long grass," Uduto said in a statement released in Nairobi.

He said the ear-notching for monitoring rhino movements is being jointly done by KWS, Narok County and Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa).

According to Udoto, preliminary observations show that the rhino was "Temple" as identified by the Maasai Mara management. Its range covered both the Maasai Mara National Reserve and adjacent Serengeti National Park.

The killed rhino is estimated to have been aged 15-20 years.

"This occurrence in the Mara, the first this year across the country, is of great concern to KWS given the endangered status of the black rhino. Last year, Kenya lost 11 rhinos to poachers," Udoto said.

He said a multi-pronged strategy is being enforced to ensure poaching of endangered species is kept to the minimum.

"At the same time, the existing cross-border framework between Kenya and Tanzania will be used to bring the culprits to book," KWS spokesman added.

The black rhinos were once found abundantly throughout sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of the Congo Basin.

Poaching has by now limited their habitat to a patchy distribution from Cameroon in the west, to Kenya in the east and south to South Africa, and only a few years ago, it looked that wild black rhinos would disappear from Africa altogether.

Kenya's black rhino population has increased from 381 since 1987 to a current estimate of 640, according to KWS.

It is projected to rise significantly in the near future, especially with growing partnerships between government, communities and conservation organisations.

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