The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said its wardens shot dead Somali poacher Hussein Ture in a fierce gunbattle at Tsavo East National Park late on Thursday after tracking him and two colleagues in the bush for three months.

"We have been chasing him and his group for about 20 years," KWS spokesperson Connie Maina told AFP.

"He knew poaching like the back of his hand."

The agency said in a statement that its rangers and Kenyan police were still pursuing his accomplices, one of whom is thought to have been seriously injured in the exchange.

Maina said Ture, about 60, is known to have killed at least 17 elephants and nine rhinos in Kenya since 2001. He had been the target of an intense aerial and ground hunt since late September, when the group was spotted in the country.

An initial encounter between KWS rangers and the trio on December 9 resulted in a gunbattle during which one ranger was wounded, the agency said.

Ivory seized

Meanwhile, Ugandan officials said Friday they had impounded 99 pieces of illicit ivory worth about $170 000 concealed in bags on a bus travelling to the capital from the western part of the country.

The Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) said the ivory, seized by the country's revenue authority, had likely come from up to 30 elephants killed by poachers most probably in Burundi or the Democratic Republic of Congo.