Wildlife Wars: My Battle to Save Kenya's Elephants is a book written by Richard Leakey

Richard Leakey

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey is a politician, paleoanthropologist and conservationist. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger brother of Colin Leakey...

 and Virginia Morell.

It tells of how Leakey had been director of National Museum

National Museums of Kenya

The National Museums of Kenya is a State Corporation that manages Museums, Sites and Monuments in Kenya. It also practices scientific research. Its headquarters and the National Museum are located on Museum Hill, near Uhuru Highway between Central Business District and Westlands in Nairobi...

 when appointed in 1989, President Daniel arap Moi

Daniel arap Moi

Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was the President of Kenya from 1978 until 2002.Daniel arap Moi is popularly known to Kenyans as 'Nyayo', a Swahili word for 'footsteps'...

 appointed him to run the Kenya Wildlife Service

Kenya Wildlife Service

The Kenya Wildlife Service, otherwise known by the initialism KWS, is a Kenyan state corporation that was established in 1990 to conserve and manage Kenya’s wildlife...

. This was an entirely new experience to Leakey, because he had been accustomed to studying hominids

Hominidae

The Hominidae or include them .), as the term is used here, form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees , gorillas , humans , and orangutans ....

, not managing wildlife. Elephant poaching had been a major problem in the Kenyan National Parks, and the book tells of his efforts to stop it.