More doves and pigeons dropping from the skies
Category: carbofuran | Date: Apr 30 2009 | By: Martin Odino
Hi readers. While it may be interesting to watch a flock of doves perform their twisty manouvres in the skies, it is disturbing when out of the breath-taking feat, a couple of objects that seem to have been part of the flock, all of a sudden come tumbling to the ground! These were actually furadan-poisoned doves. Four came dropping down succesively within our scope of vision. Then the doves fly down not so far from us, so we rush to see what is happening.
They seem to be foraging but all of a sudden get startled and the flock takes to the air again. If you are like me, carrying a camera and just having witnessed 23 storks put down by poachers using furadan you might not have wished less but capture a number of fantastic photos of these beautiful creatures. So I am left depressed that the doves or pigeons were too quick to depart.
The reality then dawns on me when I see one pigeon on the ground struggling to be on its feet, or is it wings. The pigeon’s collapse and convulsions is what had prompted the rest of the flock to take off afterall!Hit by reality I edge closer to the poor, dying bird. Worse are the horrors when later, my efforts to rescuscitate the bird fail! Here I recount these ill-fated events that happened yesterday.

The flock of pigeons and a pair of doves that had just flown down moments after we witnessed 4 pigeons drop off the skies!

A close up of the same doves. Interesting that the African Mourning Dove pair are comfortable in this flock of speckled pigeons.

The photo that disappointed me. The pigeons and the dove pair had just flown off prematurely!Little did I know that I had actually captured the startling event. Check the remaining disoriented pigeon left on the ground at the bottom left of the photo.

The disoriented intoxicated Speckled Pigeon.

Same pigeon, front view.

We lost him!Here I am preparing to open him up back at camp, justt for curiosity how much of the rice with furadan he had consumed and how it looked like.Later when I am winding up with this phase of this survey, I will get samples of poisoned birds digestive tracts for lab analysis.

We encountered these while bearing the carcass of the pigeon back to camp . Not a mismatch this time. Survivors, I would call them. The bird on the left is a Ruff. Quite showy in appearance compared to the one I was identifying in the post what I am doing in bunyala. The pinkish legs and it actually had a rufous tinge on the nape suggests it is attaining breeding plumage and should be one of the late departures back to Europe for breeding now that spring has set in.
The duck to the right is the White-faced Tree Duck, otherwise the White-faced Whistling Duck. In years gone, these would congregate in 20’s or more in numbers. The largest flock I have seen are 6 individuals! These were poisoned in large numbers by poachers using furadan and it is alleged they turned t the Storks after they realized their poaching of the ducks was as fruitful as expected because the ducks had almost become obsolete in the area.This subject had a mate and therefore not at all mismateched to the Ruff.

Today is my sixth day in Bunyala. Yesterday 23 African Open-billed Storks were killed which in my observation marks the demise of a whole flock. In the earlier 4 days,a total of 30 storks had been killed through furadan baiting. Over time, I have noticed that the storks seem to flock rather intimately. When I started this phase of the survey last friday on 24/04/2009, the flock that had been consistent in the poisoning field had 56 individuals. If any, only 3 members of this flock remain and may join other flocks if they too are not already poisoned. Today we were out in the field early about 0600hrs and by 1400hrs when we took a break for lunch we had not spotted any flock of storks! The poachers say that a new flock is easy to poison because they are ignorant of the poisoning. If another flock comes in, we expect another nasty poisoning scenario and that may not be so long from now.
It is high time Pesticide Control Products Board (PCPB) and Agrochemicals Association of Kenya (AAK or CropLife ,Kenya) hurried to see to it that this pesticide is ridded of and JUANCO hastened the buy back for FMC.
Surely Bunyala is running dangerously low of its once very rich bird biodiversity!
Please keep reading and supporting.
Elephants poisoned with Furadan in Tanzania
Category: carbofuran | Date: Apr 29 2009 | By: Claudia Hodkinson
It has just been reported to us from a credible source that Furadan is also used to poach elephants in Tanzania and Kenya. Apparently Furadan laced cabbages are left out for elephants to consume, once affected by the poison, the animals are tracked and killed (or they wait for them to die), their ivory removed and sold to dealers.
The person who reported this claimed that the 712 kg of ivory recently siezed on the Kenya/Tanzania border may have come from elephants killed in this way.
We are trying to verify this report and encourage anyone who may have information to write to us on info@wildlifedirect.org
Tags: , elephant, Elephant poaching, furadan, ivory, ivory trade, Kenya, Poisoning wildlife
18 poisoned storks and a rescued dove
Category: carbofuran | Date: Apr 28 2009 | By: Martin Odino
The bird species being poisoned in Bunyala Rice scheme depend on the state in which the paddy field is in. This time, the crop has been harvested and threshing is in its closing stages. A lot of grains are scattered about since the process is done manually; beating the stalks with the grains with sticks. It is therefore the turn of seedeaters to be targeted by poachers. Top on this list are the doves which cluster together to forage in the plots.
Two days ago while heading to camp for lunch, a flock of doves flew past across the path. One of these fell down and started scurrying across the road. A few more metres off road and into a rice plot, the bird stopped moving. It was a Red-eyed Dove. Many others in the flock, , I am sure had been poisoned from the direction in which the doves were coming from. Unfortunately, even with the keen eye of our binoculars, we could not trace the poachers.
Well I picked up the dove. His legs were stiff, his wings droopy and a lot of viscous fluid kept flowing from his mouth and nostrils. I gave the bird water from the nearby irrigation water channel. In the next few moments, the bird was throwing up. I hoped this was a good sign. I realized the stiffness in the legs had easened up though the wings remained stiff. I thought it waas wise to carry him home to rest, may be a little non-poisonous grain, and more water before releasing him.
We were gone for much of the afternoon after lunch. Things were sad in the field. Amongst other numerous doves, 18 out of 46 African Open-billed Storks were poisoned using furadan-laced snails and put in a sack.

The sack containing the 18 poisoned African Open-billed Storks with the complacent winner of the prize standing next to it.

The inside of the sack showing the contents

A sample of the storks from the sack

The poacher riding off with his catch
About 5pm, it started drizzling and it was time to trudge back to camp where I also knew I had a dove to care for. I hoped he had regained his strength, though I also feared for the worst, that he might have not survived. Anyway, good news he was in good shape and ready for release. I knew this the moment I got hold of him from his make-shift house because his wing beating was strong and tugging.

The Red-eyed Dove cosy on my palm. Just wondered why he was not taking off!

Time to go!
But even while releasing him, I could not help feeling he was just going to be at the mercies of God, since the poachers and furadan poison are still at large. Anyway, hope you are carefull out there birdie!
As we walked home, not so many doves had been lucky to have been rescued. These were mostly single doves picked up by locals from eating rice grain with furadan after the poachers who would claim rights over the quarry had left the field. We could not do much for these, besides photos of evidence since most were either already dead or maimed. Check out their photos below.




Please keep reading.
Poisoning predators in Tsavo
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: Claudia Hodkinson
I just received this from the Friends of Tsavo, it seems that Furadan poisoning is a major problem there too. The author of the article told me that he actually saw the purple granules on the carcass but did not collect samples - they simply burned them. This newsletter is reproduced here with permission from the Friends of Tsavo.
Paula
Tags: Friends of Tsavo, furadan, poisoning, Wildlife, Wildlifedirect
Poisoned Birds to Count
Category: carbofuran | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: Martin Odino
Hi dear readers! I have commenced on the April-May survey down in Bunyala.The rains are here, the locals’ morale is high and…..sadly, bird poisoning is still raging grande at large scale magnitudes. The rains have definatelycome with changes:
Hope to the locals since there is now expectation that the planted corn, from which the staple local food, UGALI, is derived will flourish and avert the long persevered food crisis in the area and country. The country is baically looking green:

Local biodiversity, represented by birds is teeming with adornment and bounty.

Pin-tailed Whydah

Black-winged Bishop

A flock of Speckled Pigeons
The rice growing area is almost all harvested marking the field’s conversion to such a vast poisoning field!
Unlike never before since this survey began in February this year, the area is busy round the clock at day time. In early morning, and late afternoon, the professional poachers prowl the expanse to do their poisoning of birds. When they are satisfied with the catch, ordinary locals lacking in professional bird-poisoning skills comb the fields once the experts have left and pick up the birrds that continue to die or are disoriented from eating furadan-laced baitswhich remain in the field and are deadly up to at least 24 hours after being set.. 
Above is one of the local bird poachers.

Kids disturbing a flock of pigeons in the hope that a disoriented subject will remain behind.

A bird picked by kids, 24 hours after the bait was laid out! Their efforts hatch afterall.
So I am still counting dead birds from furadan poisoning afterall, even after over a month since FMC proclaimed it withddrawn from Kenya.
Oh!one other thing I spent time doing after setting foot in Bunyala, due to the rains is finding a new route to the poisoning site. It needs one to be physically fit because you have to hop across about 5 feet wide water trenches to get to the study site!

Please Keep reading.
Tags: African Open-billed Stork, Bunyala, furadan, Poacher, poisoning
Mocap is grey
Category: Pesticides | Date: Apr 22 2009 | By: Martin Odino
During the meeting between FMC and Wildlifedirect together with involved conservationists on Furadan poisoning issues, a number of disturbing issues arose from what I will regard as normal defending of your own from the way FMC talked highly of Furadan.
I saw dismay in my colleagues faces when one FMC representative proclaimed that we needed to look out for purple granules around the mouth and in the vicinity if we wanted to have a basis of implicating furadan as the possible cause of death of an animal suspected to have been poisoned, and that…. Mocap is physically similar to Furadan. I recall someone asking innocently, “Is it also purple?” and the answer was a sure YES! Further, that there was a possibility of Furadan containers being re-packed with non-furadan but similar looking granules, the likes of Mocap resulting to false implication of furadan as the culprit poison.
Of course there were many other attempts by the FMC persons to protect their product among them that Furadan is just a name used to define any deadly poisonous pesticide. But what has been tormenting me much as I was doubtful of FMC’s narration is the possibility that I may have missed out on a chemical, especially Mocap and thought it was Furadan being used in some poisoning cases. So today I set out to buy the chemical which is turning out the big time replacement for Furadan for agricultural uses.

Above is the 200 grammes package of Mocap. The cost prize for the pack is USD2.5 but after bargaining, I bought it at USD2.25.

I opened the container and was met by a repulsive pungent whiff. I hope this characteristic makes it difficult to use the pesticide to poison wildlife. I was right to doubt the colour dictated to us by the FMC guys. Surely the granules look grey! the least you can come to link grey with purple is to say grey is a shade of purple, may be?


I even tried dissolving Mocap granules in water just incase it would yield a purple solution. From my basic chemistry, I know that the likes of copper sulphate change from white crystals to give a blue-coloured solution. I think what you are seeing above is a misty suspension, more grey than purple.

This is now purple and I witnessed its preparation, watching a poacher add water on to furadan granules then stir thoroughly.
Surely, Furadan is purple and Mocap is grey!
Tags: FMC, furadan, Mocap, poisoning, Wildlife, Wildlifedirect
Some Beauty in Bunyala
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 21 2009 | By: Martin Odino
It is not true that Bunyala only boasts of its ugly bird poisoning incidences. I must admit many at times, clips of mother nature’s beauty flash past my gaze. Sadly, quite many of these miss being captured and stored in my camera’s memory for exposition to my dear readers. Kindly excuse me because I am normally engaged in capturing the poisoning incidences while trying to conserve my camera’s battery charge. In fact sometimes I am normally without charge which means I cannot do much photographing and have to wait till my assistant takes the battery to be charged at the nearest shopping center, 2 miles away, after we close for the day.
This does not mean I dont have something out of poisoning for you to see. In any case it is acknowledging the beauty that encourages me to struggle on to try bring some change in this area. The beauty is also some kind of consolation, just before or after witnessing traumatizing bird deaths from poisoning.Check out the photos below:

An early morning photo. Usually we leave camp at 0530hrs and head west, so I took this photo looking back in our camp’s direction which is a little offset to the left side of the photo and therefore not visible. You cannot drive or ride here because the place had been prepared for the expansion of the rice scheme and therefore has some embarkments demarcating the would be rice plots appearing horizontal just above the foot of the photograph. The bushes (euphorbia and some shrubs) just behind the embarkments are unique in the sense that they constitute the microhabitat of the African White-tailed Nightjar, a nocturnal insect-eating bird whose distribution is limited to a few localities in western Kenya and I just stumbled on this loocality when this survey began in February 2009.

This is about 0645hrs, just about the time we enter the active rice-growing part of bunyala Rice Scheme. At this particular time it is cultivated and we would normally head further west where rice has already been harvested and where poachers would be busy laying bait at about this time. By the time we get to the baiting area, it will just be in time for the poachers to back off while in-flying birds settle to eat the poisoned baits.

A Kestrel in graceful flight over the grounds where poisoning takes place.

now soaring checking out for quarry

In strong light. Another kestrel hovering prior to descent for a kill! a locust kill!

“Who could be in the skies?”. A Kestrel feeling challenged by an overflying Black-chested Snake Eagle.

The mismatch! An even more intimate pose by the immature African Open-billed Stork and Hadada Ibis written about in we are losing breeding birds.

Bunyala is a magnificent expansive flat plain. The panorama lying behind me in this photo is just a portion of it.
I just had to be biased to put so many photos of birds!
Please keep reading!
A Thank you note
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 20 2009 | By: Martin Odino
Dear readers, I am obligated to thank you all for your support hitherto. Thank you for visiting to read this blog and commenting and advising accordingly. I want to very specially also thank those of you who have donated towards this blog’s cause - to end wildlife poioning. In particular I want to recognize those donors whose email contacts I do not have and have therefore not been able to thank them personally. I am going to be using your donations for laboratory charges for testing of poisoned bird specimen brought back from the field during the April-May survey. I leave for the field this Friday 24/04/2009,and will update you on the latest from Bunyala as well as notify you on the lab testing proceedings.
A lot remains undone, especially with the campaign entering the MONITORING FOR FURADAN phase. We still need to sample agrovet stores for availability of the withdrawn pesticide by FMC. Further, not all sites, for instance are being monitored, but through your continued support I, with Wildlife Direct’s patron support, can put in place a more thorough monitoring system through supportive manpower. Mwea Irrigation Rice Scheme, a long-time bird poisoning site remains not consistently monitored. Yet there the poisoning of birds is even more secretive than Bunyala with the poisoned birds being sold to nearby low cost cafes. It is alleged that wild ducks are collected in sacks to be distributed to these eating spots.
Following our meeting with FMC last week where various concerned ecologists gathered at Wildlife Direct’s board room to meet the FMC’s representatives, it turned out that we need to have more and more of our samples tested to satisfy our local pesticide regulation bodies-Pest Control, Products Board (PCPB)and Agrochemical Association of Kenya (AAK) or Crop Life, Kenya. FMC blatantly claimed that we must make our observations scientific. In essence, they were saying that they need hard evidence of tested samples, not appreciating the fact that the costs of testing these samples are very high. Please read more about the meeting with FMC on the post Our meeting with fmc Baraza Blog.
From the meeting again, it became apparent that testing the samples at the Government Chemist Laboratory I mentioned in the post, Striving for better post-furadan poisoning days-Part 2, would possibly result in the laboratory findings not being accepted, at least by the standards of FMC, PCPB and AAK. This means we have to do our sample analysis at a different lab. The lab of choice is the KEPHIS lab-Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services. But the costs are way higher here, though the methodology and standards of the laboratory are of world class level. Each sample will cost about USD100. So, I am even still short of finances if I must get all my 10 samples from Bunyala tested. So this is the situation.
Please keep supporting me through reading, commenting and donating and…

end this barbaric poisoning frenzy and…


brighten the lives of the birds; both big and Small!
Tags: AAK, Bunyala, FMC, furadan, Government Chemist, KEPHIS, Mwea Rice Irrigation Scheme, PCPB, poisoning, Wildlife Direct
We are losing breeding birds
Category: carbofuran | Date: Apr 18 2009 | By: Martin Odino
Wild Birds are busy chaps, waking up early not just to catch the worm, but to hunt to catch the worm. The worm is in essence a real worm or grain or fish or frog or snail or termite or ant, just to mention but a few. This food gives the birds the energy to go about their lives which other than the feeding, hence growth, also includes breeding, territorial protection/contests and enemy or predator escape. The birds therefore try to budget where they can on their energy use, using it as sparingly as possible where necessary.
Breeding is one of the processes in birds’ lives that demands a lot of energy. Usually it involves displaying at courting, nest-bulding, mating, egg-laying, incubating the eggs, hatching and taking care of the young or hatchlings till they are able to fend for themselves. Birds wil therefore start breeding only when they are at their best in health of which being well-fleshed is a measure. This is only attained during and after a rainy season. The breeding process wil only be succesful if there is food to nourish the breeders and their young. This again is most probable after rains.
At the close of March, Bunyala had experienced modest heavy showers literally characterizing the nights that I was there during my March-April survey. As I continued with my counting of furadan-poisoned dead birds, I realized progressive increase in numbers of birds that were getting ready to breed. In birds, change of plumage is typical at breeding. The birds’ photos below, some already used in other posts illustrate this well. but let’s just take a closer look:

The Wood Sandpiper above was luckily not poisoned by the time I spotted him (or her). He is most likely heading back to northern Europe in the hope of succesful parenting season. he looks good! The indication that he is ready for breeding is the intense spotting on the back graduating to prominent barring on the flanks. A non-breeding bird would be less mottled and lacking the grading to bars on the flanks. I hope he has not been poisoned as I write!


The poisoned Cattle Egret above is likewise in its breeding plumage, ready to breed when the rains rescind. Usually the Cattle Egrets are white plumaged and dark-legged when they are not breeding. This casualty has in addition to the white plumage a wash of orange colour on the head and upper back or mantle(the photo with many poisoned birds). Its upper legs have acquired the orange colour and the lower legs, if not already orange but just scoured by the water and the egret knee-high stalks of the cut rice plants, then they are gradually acquiring it as well (photo with egret only).

These furadan-poisoned Ringed Plovers have the bright colour traits typical at breeding. Check the rich yellow-orange on their legs and bill base. This rich yellow-orange colour is lway duller in non-breeding birds. No doubt they are ready to breed. but they just got killed!
And so I am left sad not so certain of what this means. It is disturbing that the poachers are killing birds that have survived aginst the tough conditions of nature, through the taxing drought and when they are just about to bring forth another generation, they are murdered!

Clearly, food conditions seem to be favouring the birds but the poachers are the ones ruining this good fortune.The eagle above is an immature Black-chested Snake Eagle gradually moulting into adult plumage. Conditions must favour its moulting, more so availability of food because the process is energy demanding. Well, the grasslands of Bunyala especially around the rice scheme are sustained by the irrigation, overflow spillage waters . Snakes must thrive about the irrigation scheme in proximity to the frogs, one of the snakes’ favourite meals. And so the young eagle is moulting into an adult with the high-energy requiring moulting process fueled by the snakes and birds. The moulting is evidenced by shorter central tail feathers. These are new growth feathers with richer colour definition. Progressively, the rest of the outer tail feathers will also drop off and be replaced. Likewise, the flight feathers slightly on the outside from mid wing, on the trailing wing edges look shorter with richer colour definition. These are the innermost of the so called Primary flight feathers. These are very important for a bird’s flight.The moulting will progress outwardly and give the bird a grown look. In time, he should be able to breed. Good luck Eagle!

Many of you might have just brushed aside the birds above as a cosy couple of African Open-billed Storks. Please take a look again at the seemingly shorter bird. The tall, standing bird is no doubt an Open-billed Stork, but theo ther bird is a Hadada Ibis! It is a shock the two hung about each other for so long, foraging together and pacing about together. I could not help thinking this was a case of coupling misfiring! By this I just mean mismatched pairing by mambers of different species. But taking a closer look at the Open-bill, he is quite spotted on the neck with the bill colour not a nice horn colour that would be typical of a full-grown bird. He is therefore a young bird, may be traumatized following the loss of parents most likely to furadan poisoning before he was of age to care for himself. Probably, he is deriving solace from a berieved mother Hadada, left childless, possibly after also losing her young to Furadan poisoning. The Hadada Ibis is shorter and has a bill that is more curved and narrows towards the end. You see this now?
So many of the African Open-billed Storks have been poisoned using Furadan that I am afraid how long the local population will stand. I intend to establish trends of the local population of White-faced Whistling Ducks, otherwise Tree Ducks which at the moment are not directly targeted for poisoning because of their greatly reduced numbers. It is said the ducks local population has been pushed to numbers in single digits in the area by Furadan poisoning. With the reduced numbers, the poachers turned to African Open-billed Storks. It is true, what used to be at least 20 strong flocks as the locals say, during my recent surveys I only see 5 individuals on the average, in a span of more than 10 days!

The pair above look cosy and normal in the sense that both are Open-billed Storks. I can only wish them luck this breeding season.
Please keep reading.
Tags: African Open-billed Stork, Bunyala, furadan, poachers, poisoning
Bird Poisoning Profession
Category: carbofuran | Date: Apr 16 2009 | By: Martin Odino
In the last 2 months, I have been exposed to the world of bird poisoning using furadan to have realized that the activity is a profession with ranks of expertise, areas of specialization and characterized by greed for success or ambition if it was a legal undertaking which comes out by the defined hunting boundaries during the activity.
The experts train new recruits. The programme is a sort of apprenticeship. A willing or interested chap joins the expert whose knowledge about the birds he poisons is awesome but whose killing methodology of the same birds is horrifying. Below is a drowsy migrant wader, intoxicated from eating furadan-laced termites.
The experts are well versed on the feeding and behavioural ecology of the birds of their interest; they know where to find them including the preferred habitat and specific sites in the habitat. I was impressed by one hunter when he told me about where I would find two different species member of the same family; these are the Wood Sandpipers which he told me that they preferred the pools inside of rice plots, whereas the Green Sandpipers preffer foraging aong the water-filled trenches that bring water to the rice plots. This turned out true in most cases. So the student learns in the way of the teacher and will earn independence if he so wishes when his teacher pronounces him as qualified. My deeper understanding of this is that over the years, the birds that have been lost to poisoning are way too many, especially with the inception of more poachers into bird poisoning.
The apprentices are taught generally on the various methods of poiosning birds. During poisoning, seasonal specialization where particular methods are used to kill birds observed to be abundant or in season are employed. Some poachers however are biased to particular modes of poiosning throughout. I realized that these modes of poisoning come with equipment or requirements. Other than the captive storks to aid in baiting especially other storks, there are containers or buckets for carrying and lacing the baits with Furadan. Below are two poachers riding off from their poisoning venture.You will realize a hoe attached at the back of the leading bicycle in the photo below.
This is used to dig out various insects that the poachers lace with furadan and lay the baits out to respective birds to intoxicate them.
(Dug out distributor trench embarkment that was also a termite mound; once the termites are exposed, they are picke up, laced in furadan and ready to kill the birds)
Then there is the bicycle! Seems a universal piece of equipment. Not only is it a means of carrying away the quary but a means of reaching to far-located poisoning sites. In actual sense, a number of the poachers come from quite a distance to this poisoning site that is Bunyala Rice Scheme.
(A harvested section of Bunyala Rice Scheme . In these plots, poisoning is currently taking place)
(This portion of the rice scheme has not been harvested. Once harvested, it will also become a poiosning field)
(Meanwhile storks and other birds enjoy in the fields that still have rice crop).
At the poisoning sites, my team has difficulty when sometimes we have to get data from the several poachers that swarm the fields. This has been observed on days when it drizzles a little the night before. But on many of such occassions, we end up having minimal mortality, thanks to what I have refered to as greed for success in the first paragraph. Usually, the poachers establish strategic poisoning spots in the rice plots where they set their decoy storks and poison baits. They then must startle a flock of storks settled close by which will see the decoys set by the poachers and fly to them. Since on such occassions there are many decoys set at various locations of the poisoning site, the startled storks tend to get confused and are restless, moving from one set baiting spot with decoys to another. Further, the noise from squabling poachers over right to startle the storks to fly towards their baiting set up confuses the birds further. The end result is every other poacher running about and shouting in the field trying to get the storks to fly to their furadan-laced snail baits. Usually the flock of storks fly away during which the grumbling infuriated poachers now turn to baiting smaller birds using the insect baits laced in furadan.
(A portion of the flock of the contested for African Open-billed Stork)
It is only a matter of time however and the stocks will be back. With many poachers gone, the patient one has the whole flock to himself, and with the storks hungry, they eat and many succumb to the poisonous pesticide.
And so bird poisoning is just another profession, but an illicit and barbaric one where good knowledge about birds is used by the poachers to destroy them.
Tags: African Open-billed Stork, Bunyala Rice Scheme, furadan, Poacher, poisoning




