Top American ivory investigator Esmond Bradley Martin was stabbed to death in Kenya over the weekend, according to BBC News.
The 75-year-old former U.N. special envoy for rhino conservation was discovered dead by his wife on Sunday in their home in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.
Martin had allegedly sustained a fatal stab wound to the neck and investigators believe that he was killed in a botched robbery.
Nairobi DCI chief Ireri Kamwende said investigations were underway, although no suspects have been identified.
"We have already questioned a gardener and a cook who are employed at the home," he said, according to The Telegraph.
Martin had just returned from a research trip to Myanmar and was compiling his findings into a report when he was killed, BBC News noted.
He led the fight against the illegal trade of ivory and rhino horn and authored several investigative reports on illegal smuggling in Kenya and the trade in China, Vietnam, and Laos.
"With the end of the legal ivory trade in China, the survival chances for elephants have distinctly improved. We must give credit to China for doing the right thing by closing the ivory trade," he told The Star last year.
Martin was instrumental in helping put pressure on China to ban the trade of rhino horn in the 1990s and also played a vital role in the ban of domestic sales of ivory, USA Today reported.
Messages mourning the loss have spread on social media.
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