Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: May 16 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Well, proving furadan pesticide poisoning is one of the most elusive concepts that those who may not be out to witness poisoning are priviledged not to be taunted with.

Saturday, 21:30 hrs in Kenya and I am wondering what happens to my samples lying at KEPHIS laboratory. It has been a week since I submitted them there. That the only national HPLC facility was not working left me with no option but to wait till I am contacted in the week that just ended just before the testing is done. Then I am told till Tuesday next week. The technician sounded convincing that at -20 degrres centigrade, the processes likely to degrade the poison were halted, so I have to wait patiently for 72 more hours.

I witnessed these birds die from eating rice churned in a solution of furadan but still I have to send around 100 USD for each sample to scientifically verify my findings. Well, I find it hard to like science at this point, but it a necessary evil.

Just a recap:

The purple granules of furadan showing in the cavities of some of the snails’ shells

Furadan-laced snails, meant for storks; sticks used to apply the poison into the snails’ shell cavities

A poacher’s foot, kill and poison (Furadan 5G )

Furadan 5G

The sample of rice and furadan granules insolubles collected from the container in which bait was carried.

I bet with the above pieces of evidence, chances that I am wrong are almost none.

I am worried that while the storks eat the snails with the granules, and there is a possibility of finding the purple granules in their guts, seedeaters do not eat the granules! they eat the furadan laced grains that hardly even show the purple colouration, that would be a quick indicator.

In my samles, I did not get a stork’s gut. This is because my surveys last not less than 10 days. It just happened that the last flock of the storks had been poisoned to the last, 2 days earlier. The storks’ availability in the rice scheme is greatly dependent on water availability. With the harvesting having just been completed, the storks had thinned out to only this single flock whose members had been poisoned by the earliest day that I could halt the survey.

I really hope that minus twenty degrees celcius temperature in which my sample are preserved works.

Will keep updating you.

Tags: Bunyala, furadan, HPLC, KEPHIS