Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 30 2008 | By: Martin Odino

It is no doubt now that hunting was and still contributes largely to the loss of biodiversity. Many governments have put stringent penalties on hunters of wildlife. In a way it has worked because gone are days when you would meet a hunter wielding a gun, a spear or a bow and arrow unless if they have a licence. But hunting continues only that the new methods are not obvious. A new generation of hunters are now phantoms. They leave no trace afterwards. Further, they kill to destroy rather than to control. People did not go shooting down all the lions in Tsavo because amongst them were man-eaters during the reign of the man-eaters of Tsavo. Nowadays, an attack by a leopard on one’s sheep will most likely prompt the killing of all wild carnivores in sight. They do not kill to eat because the frothing carcases on the poisoning fields are not picked while fresh to eat. Still, if they do, some of the poisoned wander away and are not retrieved. Poisoned birds in Kenya are a good example.

Then who are these people?Hunters or Poisoners?But these are just innovative folks who have taken advantage of what the manufacturer of a compound overlooked. Strychnine has some distasteful bitterness which is why I think it is distasteful to animals with keen sense of taste such as many herbivores. Virtually all birds do not taste and this may explain their vulnerability to strychnine. Carnivores can ignore a degree of distastefulness and unpalatability. I have seen dogs eat soil-ladden placenta from a cow that had just calfed.I wondered if they were not uncomfortable with the grittiness of the soil. This renders them(carnivores) vulnerable to strychnine I believe.Furadan neither smells nor tastes. In my opinion, it is easily consumed and therefore could have even more devastating effects than strychnine. What if FMC made furadan unpalatable. The liquid form did fine for grain-eating birds but not any more with the new generation of hunters who want furadan solution to soak seeds for the birds to eat (for example in Kenya). What if they made it bitter?My mother would mix sugar with quinine to stop me from eating it. It worked. Not that I am a carnivore!Giving a diststeful property would lower chances of it being consumed by many wild animals because this will give them a chance to employ their sense of taste and spare their lives. A better option than banning?Is it possible?Is this a feasible solution to promote Wildlife Direct’s Stop Wildlife Poisoning campaign efforts?

Tags: Carnivore, furadan, Lion, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, strychnine, Tsavo, Wildlife Direct

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Category: Uncategorized, carbofuran | Date: Jun 27 2008 | By: Martin Odino

USA is struggling to ban carbofuran, in Kenya we are struggling under its sinewy arm that continues to batter wildlife. Then we hear of carbofuran poisoning in Canada as reported by The Daily Observer where the Canadian Ministry of Natural Resources is investigating into a case where baits with the chemical have been laid in the country’s Drizzle Park area and are a threat to wildlife. But there is light at the end of the tunnel for Scotland’s birds of prey as reported in News.scotland.com website. I hope more lights spring up at the end of the many poison tunnels! This is chemical warfare on our biodiversity.

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Category: Pesticides | Date: Jun 26 2008 | By: Martin Odino

In Isiolo and Maralal districts of Kenya, whose inhabitants are mostly pastoralist communities, carnivore-domestic livestock encounters are known to occur virtually on a daily basis. The local Borana, Somali and even Turkana lament of crippling losses of their livestock. Initial conversation with these people gives one the impression that they only look on and cannot do much. This was during my survey in the region in May 2008. My conversation soon grew cordial with three pastoralists at the local livestock market and in a matter of time, they opened up. They revealed using a sugar-like, medium grained, crystalline substance. They apply this on the killed goat, sheep or cow before laying it out as bait mostly to lions and hyenas. While doing this, they cover their mouths and noses and ensure they are upwind because they say the substance is lethal even when just inhaled.

I have never seen strychnine in my life but from reading a little and what I have heard one local conservationist say, this would be my guess. But strychnine is categorized as a highly restricted chemical. Indeed the pastoralists admit the chemical is much scarce nowadays but those who use it to poison carnivores claim that they either steal it or get it through ‘backdoor’ means.

The neighbouring Meru people to Isiolo district are predominantly crop farmers. These use furadan as a pesticide on their crops. I however also observed that the Somali, Borana and Turkana are embracing crop farming. I talked to a few in the small vegetable and maize-cultivated plots in the seasonal wetlands. They said they have welcomed the practice as fashion. I could not however stop feeling the imminent surge of carnivore mortality catastrophe. Crop farming practice is likely to lead to the discovery of furadan. With enlightment and through experiment, the nematicide could soon assume the role of an effective carnivore poison as has been observed in other places such as Kajiado district.

Many factors against carnivore survival are in play here: strychnine (if I am right it is strychnine) is in effect as carnivore poison; livestock predation stands at high rates; and soon furadan may be discovered and be used in wiping out the carnivore community whose members are all suspect of being behind the livestock killings by virtue of being carnivores. Progressive biodiversity loss is happening here when you read Simon Thomsett’s revelaton when I shared with him my findings, “…You have stepped onto an old battle field. You see no bodies, hear no guns. Yet a whole environment has collapsed 20 years before. The whole of Isiolo, from Lewa, Meru, Embu, Samburu, Shaba, Ol donyo Sabache, Wamba, Mathew’s was my old hunting ground back in the late 1970s and early 80s. I returned back in 1992-95, but saw a shadow of what I rembered. It had all been poisoned. I lived in Ol Donyo Sache (Ololokokwi) for 7 years, not a shamba in site…….but poisoning was routine. Note the loss of vulture colonies all the way through Laisamis to Marsabit. You see the cliffs, you see the shit, but you see no vultures.” Only that this time the poisoning may get even more severe and accelerate the extirpation of the much reduced predator/scavenger numbers, much less than Simon saw, “…they have far less to kill today.”

What is the wisest thing a man would do if he walked home and found another shooting at his wife and children with a pistol with limited number of bullets? It then occurs to him that a machine gun is in his main house with numerous rounds of ammunition. If God spares your family this time, would you still risk having the machine gun in your house which in the first place you no longer use because the traumas of the war in which you used it made you vow never to use it ever again?

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Tags: strychnine

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Category: carbofuran | Date: Jun 23 2008 | By: Martin Odino

Hi, its Martin. I just wonder if giving water to furadan-poisoned wildlife (other than birds) is reliable first aid if anyone came across an animal obviously poisoned by furadan. In Certain places, you are almost 100% sure that any poisoning incidence is from furadan.

In one of my surveys, I came across a bird vendor who was going round the village selling his catch. I was curious to peep in his hunter’s bag and saw a mixture of birds, both dead and alive. I explained that I was going on a journey and needed to get some bird meat to my folks away in Nairobi City. I therefore insisted on having a couple of the live birds so that even if they died, they would still remain somewhat fresh because I would have covered some stretch of the journey with them still alive. We had a deal and I paid about 5 dollars for 10 birds.

Back in my tent, I got down to attending to my victims. I have known a number of cases where dogs and cats run to drink water when poisoned and in many cases they have survived. I scooped water using a teaspoon and carefully gave the birds to drink. Seven of the birds I had bought were doing bad and I could not get them to drink the water. These ended up dying. Three however survived and I released them early the next morning. In the photographs below, the heaped birds are the ones that did not make it. The other three in a triangle are the survivors. They even got to a point of being agressive to one another and is the reason why I put them in a triangle for photographing. Here they are still not so strong, but picking up. By dawn the next morning, they were strong enough and took to the wing!It is a shame I could not photograph them looking robust because my camera battery charge had run out.

I believe Other factors count for the effectiveness of this method, such as amount of furadan ingested and duration during whch the animal has stayed with the chemical in its system. Not everyone is a vet though but I believe anyone can do something to try help a situation. What of the other wildlife?I acknowledge that by virtue of their big size it is difficult to give them water but may be someone else has been succesful. Did it work?what and how did you do it?what is the principle behind it vets/experts?Can this be an adopted first aid practice to help save some of our wildlife?

3 responses so far

Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Jun 19 2008 | By: Martin Odino

Hi, I am Martin Odino. I just joined Wildlife Direct to coordinate and work with WD’s Furadan Task Force. I have been collecting information on furadan use, distribution and legislation of the chemical in certain parts of Kenya and the local regulatory agency respectively. I am still collecting information on furadan use, cases of its abuse (dominated by deliberate poisoning) for puposes of documenting the current scenario as concerns the chemical’s significance to biodiversity conservation efforts. Kindly share with me such information on the email address: martinchael@gmail.com. This will be greatly appreciated and will go a long way towards contributing to the advocacy for our animals faced with the risk of furadan poisoning.

The following is a real tale of the mastery that furadan has assumed through empowerment by man to enslave and kill biodiversity from my last survey in May 2008.

The Bunyala irrigation scheme is a source of livelihood to natives of Bunyala in Busia district,Kenya. The rice growing irrigation scheme is also particularly attractive to birds which come to feed on the cereal and other lifeforms that come with the flood waters. At least 98 species of birds are recorded in and around the irrigation field. Other wild biodiversity seen during my four day survey includes wild cats, monitor lizards and snakes.

Though a focal point for the struggle for life sustenance by two obvious forms of biodiversity -man and birds, another latent scenario becomes apparent when you walk through the irrigation field and pick up carcases of the latter.Bait in form of rice grains laced by furadan are behind these deaths.

Just a few hundred meters from the irrigation field, in some homesteds of people generally regarded as bird hunters, captive Open-billed Storks are tethered to reeds, pegs or even on some poles in the houses. These subjects were baited using snails with furadan. They were then quickly given water which spared them from death but condemned them to captivity. These captive storks are used to raise alarm calls to conspecific individuals who then fly down to them. Meanwhile the hunters have scattered about the calling storks molluscs(snails) which have furadan skillfully put in the snails’ shell cavities while still leaving the snails in the shells. The in flying storks get distracted by the snails about their captive coleague and settle on the easy,ready meal oblivious of the killer furadan in the baiting snails’ shells. In a few minutes, the graceful birds lose their gait, becoming disoriented in movement and their flight ability is totally impaired. The eager hunters then come upon them with sizeable sticks to maim the individuals that are still strong before collecting their catch for sell to the waiting l0cal market.

But the poisoning work of furadan does not end here. Some very lucky birds manage to escape into the bushes or even fly (for smaller-sized species) to low trees. There is evidence of undisposed, dicomposing, escapee birds on low trees, in bushes and on the grass plains. But just how many of these runaways and carcases are not eaten by other predators and scavengers?I hope none, though I know there are at least some that are eaten and with the furadan still potent in their crops, the predators and scavengers also end up being poisoned.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 18 2008 | By: Martin Odino

We have just been informed that the carbofuran poisoning story by BBC’s Adam Mynot has just aired on BBC World

It is also all over the BBC website

In his investigative report covering the lion poisonings in Masai Mara on BBC website (BBC Tv and BBC radio)Adam notes that he went to buy Furadan and in one place

“one shop-keeper even described carbofuran as a “lion-killer”.

Isn’t it Amazing that FMC and Juanco still insist that this pesticide is harmless!

Thanks you BBC for giving the story this kind of coverage

If anyone sees the footage please let us know how it is!

We are so pleased to have Martin Odino working with us now to help develop the Action plan Stop Poisoning Wildlife Action

Tags: BBC, Kenya, lion poisoning, Masai Mara, Richard Leakey, Wildlifedirect

8 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 17 2008 | By: Martin Odino

I have been reading blogs by A Glasgow Vet in Africa which picks up news from Wildlife Direct from time to time. He reports that vultures and hyaenas have been poisoned in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National park, including an entire clan of twelve animals near the village of Kasenyi, on the shores of Lake George.

Tags: , Africa, wildlife poisoning

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Category: Pesticides | Date: Jun 16 2008 | By: Martin Odino

I’ve been reading about wildlife poisoning in Africa and can’t help feeling that we need to do something really urgently. After our Stop Wildlife Poisoning workshop we issued a press release and were surprised to read that the Kenyan officials as well as pesticide producing/marketing company were denying the dangers of these toxic chemicals, and were abdicating their role in dealing with the misuse of these chemicals for poisoning wildlife. Even our Wildlife Authority, the Kenya Wildlife Service are ignoring the issue. Dr Leakeys call for a ban on Furadan has attracted some interest in the bloggosphere, but how serious does it have to get for the authorities to take action? Until we have only one lion left? One vulture? We can’t, it’s stupid, ignorant and totally ineffective to wait. We have to take action.

So, what are we doing?

1. We created a Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force which prepare a strategic action plan that will address the legal and policy issues, enforcement, education and awareness, as well as conservation and wildlife conflict issues. We are taking this issue to the highest level of government folks!

2. We need to raise funds so that we can have one person dedicated to coordinating this work. We currently have a small grant from IFAW that will enable us to conduct some work, and I have already made a donation of $300 towards this cause. We need to raise another $6,000 to keep this project alive until the end of the year. This will enable us to focus on gathering data and writing grant proposals so that like the Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa whose poison campaign which is supported by The Tony and Lisette Lewis Foundation has funded the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Poison Working Group (PWG), we can attract regular support apart from the blog.

Please make a donation today to enable the Stop Poisoning Wildlife Task Force to get to work on ending the poisoning of wildlife in East Africa.

Thank you

2 responses so far

Category: lions | Date: Jun 16 2008 | By: Martin Odino

This is an not new information but it’s still interesting. I just found out that in 2006 six rare Abyssinian lion cubs were poisoned in a zoo because authorities could not afford to feed them. However, Muhedin Abdulaziz, the administrator at the Lion Zoo in the capital, Addis Ababa, said “The dead cubs were sold to taxidermists for $170 each to be stuffed and sold as ornaments”.

Apparently federal wildlife officials monitored the poisoning, which they said “was painless”.

Ok, what messed up zoo will poison their own animals, and what kind of freak wants to buy a stuffed poisoned lion cub!?

Please help us stop this  kind of abuse. Support the team  that aims to Stop Wildlife  Poisoning.

Tags: Ethipian zoo, lions, Poisoning wildlife

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 14 2008 | By: Martin Odino

For those interested in following news on wildlife threats including disease and poisoning, the Wildlife Disease News Digest is the place to visit. In this article biologists in UK are calling for the ban on release of balloons as they are polluting the environment and killing wild animals.  It would seem rather obvious that baloons releases should be banned - what are the people thinking when they release them?  That they will degrade somewhere up in the atmosphere? How can the sight of balloons floating up in the sky be beautiful when we know how dangerous they can be?

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