Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 09 2008 | By: Martin Odino

He does not derive any pleasure from it. He is not the angel of death. Infact he does not wish for the death of his coleagues. Bear with me for impersonating an open-billed stork as a male. It is hard to tell the open-billed stork just by physical looks. This is the victim I talked about in an earlier post. He was captured for the sake of capturing his colleagues and any others who are lured by the birds’ seeming bountiful hunting party signalled by this individuals call. In reality, the others fly in to eat carbofuran-laced molluscs. In death, they become human food, but the decoy is preserved for future simillar assignments. He remains to raise a call that lures others to poison-laced food. The call of death!

The Open-billed Stork is traumatised to withdrawal and submission. The buffy edges of the stork’ neck feathers indicate that this is an immature bird. Also his pale bill that will darken with age. A pity that such a young bird has been condemned to captivity and may lead the rest of its life this way.

The decoy is denied of his flight ability by plucking off of his primary flight feathers by his master.

A string attached to his leg prevents him from walking away or getting to the furadan-laced snails lest he eats them and his undertaker post becomes vacant. Those snails are meant for his deceived colleagues. This individual was not on assignment at the moment when I got to visit the owner, a renowned poacher and bird hunter.The photo below shows the legs of the stork with the restraining string attached to the left leg.

Even when not held or tethered, the bird’s desolate looks elicit sadness.

This takes place in remote western Kenya, in the neighbourhood of Bunyala Rice Scheme in Busiadistrict. I could only take the photograph so far, away from the curious, scouting, not so friendly eyes of the homeowners. The home in context is the one to the right with tall eucalyptus trees.In the foregound is a section of Bunyala Rice Scheme.

As we walked away, I just had the chance to meet a bird hunter who was off to sell his catch of Open-billed Storks. These were in a small sack, some of their bills poking through it, tied to hang at the back of the bicycle. My guide told me he actually meant to sell them round the village. When we requested if he could talk to us, he acted indifferently and changed his course. My guide explained that he had abandoned his village supply round because I invoked the presence of Kenya Wildlife Service, the local wildlife custodians and he was now headed for the market place about 5km away. Again, against my guides wishes not to capture him on camera, I managed this one.

Tags: carbofuran, Kenya, Open-billed Stork, Poacher