Nairobi - Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers have arrested three suspected poachers and recovered eight elephant tusks in the country's central Rift Valley, officials said on Tuesday.

KWS spokesperson Paul Udoto said the three men were arrested on Monday in the town of Maralal in the Samburu district, about 260km north-east of the capital Nairobi.

Rangers seized eight tusks that had been extracted from four poached young elephants, he said.

The incident comes a week after a notorious Somali elephant poacher, said to have killed 17 elephants and nine rhinos between 2001 and 2006, was slain by wardens in a fierce gun battle in the country's Tsavo East National Park.

Trade in ivory is banned under a treaty of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Kenya has been hailed by conservationists for its anti-poaching steps and fierce opposition to calls for a partial lifting of that ban.