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Water saved victims of furadan poisoning

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?

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3 Responses to “Water saved victims of furadan poisoning”

Paula, on 23 Jun 2008

Hi Martin, this is facinating. 5$ for 10 birds, thats .50 each.. or Ksh 35 each… alot for a tiny little bird which is mostly feather and bone! Is that the going price? Chickens cost about 200/kg - these would be much more expensive per Kg. I wish you could have done the toxicology on these birds. Also, did you get the identity of those that survived, were they the same species? These look like a red winged starling (black and red wings) and some finches .. some social weavers? The brown ones may be females of the green/yellow ones.

dududiaries, on 23 Jun 2008

Martin it’s me again - Looking again, that black bird is not a redwing starling it’s one of the rare male widowbirds from western Kenya, and the brown one is the female, the other green/yellow one we can’t identify. Lets get this information urgently to Nature Kenya, Birdlife, audobon Society and the damn Pest control board!!! (that last bit of this comment came from Dino)

Martin Odino, on 24 Jun 2008

Paula and ‘dududiaries’. I have a number of specimen awaiting toxicological analysis at the ornothology dept. National Museums of Kenya. You are right Paula these birds were sold to me at a much higher rate. Usually a bird of their size would cost 5-10 kenya shillings.The locals know if you are a visitor and take advantage. The survivors (other than the yellow one) as well as the dead ones one are Fan-tailed widowbirds: the black ones with yellow-orange epaulettes(shoulder patches) are males while the other streaky individuals are their females and immatures. These have local restricted range around the two big water bodies(Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean) that border the country to the east and the west. Inland away from the two big water bodies you will not find them. The yellow green bird is mistakenly classified as a weaver judging from the shape of the bill and smaller size compared to the likes of the well-known Baglafecht weaver but it ‘weaves’ its nest, so a weaver nonetheless. It is known as a parasitic weaver with very small ranges in parts of western Kenya around lk.Victoria and Mt. Elgon and also in central and in the Mara.May be a finch of some sort is a more seemingly correct family name for the bird. The bird is thus also referred to as the Cuckoo Finch. A pity these uncommon individuals are even being made more uncommon by furadan

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