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Horrible things happening in Laikipia

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 15 2009 | By: paula

Dear friends

I have just come back from the Masai Mara where a lion was poisoned on 25th May. The Masai told me that it is not unusual for lions to be poisoned,  indeed they said 5 had been poisoned just 2 months ago!I went to a local agrovet store in Narok town to ask for Furadan but they did not have any. At first the store keeper told me where I could get it but after I pressed him for directions he refused and said in fact there was not anywhere.

I bought some Karate -the pesticide that the Government chemist now says killed the lion and vultures. I opened the packet and found the chemical to be white granules and not pink which the KWS vet described. I’m still not convinced that this was the pesticide used but the agrovet was very suspicious about my motives so I didn’t ask any more questions.

I spent 3 days on community conservancies where the lions are aggressively protected  - we saw 7 lions I couldn’t help watching them as they fed on an elephant carcass, and feel  shiver - the entire pride could have been wiped out if just one nasty person had the will to lace the carcass. Ten hyenas, five jackals and about 50 vultures would go too. It’s just so easy it’s frightening.

Some good news came today in our East African news paper which did a double page spread on Furadan. This weekly newspaper is carried throughout East Africa so we hope that it has an impact. One part of the story quotes the Pest Control Board official as saying that the we are wasting our time and suggests that the government does not have the apetite to ban Furadan or carbofuran.

“However, according to an official of the Kenya Pest Control and Products Board who is not authorised to talk to the press, it is business as usual at the board as “the board is not convinced that the chemical poses any danger to humans and wildlife.”

The conservationists are cheating themselves. Unless a proper legislative act is put in place, the status quo remains,” he told The EastAfrican”.

I hope this person  gets to eat his words very soon!

I’m also pleased to see a story in the Huffington Post by Luke Hunter about FMC, Furadan and lions. The message is the same as we’ve been saying all along, and I would love to talk to Luke about what we know and are seeing here in Kenya.

And then I had some horrible news. I just got a call from a friend Kuki Gallman in Laikipia. She was in hospital recovering after being attacked by bandits who broke her arm. The area she lives in sounds quite volatile but she is dedicated to conservation and always alerts me when any animals are poached. She told me today that she believes that three elephants were poisoned with Furadan which in that area is applied to the maize cobs in the nearby farms. Elephants raid the farms at night and eat the laced cobs, and it takes a week for them to die. Kuki told me that the elephants begin to drool and stumble, and they appear to go blind. After a week of suffering they die. She said she also lost a lion to poisoning, she believes it was killed with Furadan - she says everyone uses it.

The BBC asked me today if the FMC buy back had led to a decline in poisoning incidents. While you can’t get Furadan openly in any of the stores, it clearly has not yet had the effect - we still see birds being poisoned every day in Bunyala. The Furadan is coming from somewhere.

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6 Responses to “Horrible things happening in Laikipia”

Dana-Phoenix Arizona, on 15 Jun 2009

Who are these idiots at the Kenya Pest Control and Products Board. Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sauwah, on 15 Jun 2009

the kenya pest control board members are a bunch of lazy and corrupted asses! if the kenya and other paper/media will keep the pressure on ( keep the lion and other wildlife poisoning in front page ) and have these idiots interview. shine some light on these idiots and question their reasons of denial. are they all paid for by chemical companies? who hires them and who can fire them? maybe the pressure should put on their boss instead. just shame them publicly. and let the kenyans know they have a bunch of do nothing fat pigs wasting the pay taxers’ money for letting their lions and other wildlife die ( lions and other wildlife do bring million hard currency to kenya’s economy and jobs with it). if lions go, so go many tourists who can just spend their good money some where else to see the big five instead of only big four.

Anna M, on 16 Jun 2009

This is what is so frustrating… there are enough threats to Kenya, it’s wildlife and people without the guys within the powers to be adding the final insult ! Please wake up now if not for us in the West but for the sake of yourself and your children and their future not to mention the national treasure that is your wildlife !… the short sightness from these people could be the final nail in the coffin before any major climate change threats will finish the job for them……..

Martin Odino, on 16 Jun 2009

The buy back ought to be thorough in the sense that the guys buying the furadan should be able inspect the back stores of the agrovet shops. We still find that when the agrovet guys acqure some confidence with you they tell you that it can be arranged how you get the poison.In Bunyala, poachers have tried out Mocap to find out if it kills just like furadan. Good news is it does not!They say they dread the day when the carbofuran will run out altogether. My understanding is that they are being supplied with old stock.
I feel the buy back may have just left more hidden stock of Furadan. Afterall, FMC claim they have not been supplying Furadan in the country for one year now. While the buy back began last March, we had been running on the old stock which they have been buying. A lot of that stuff was dumped in Kenya though we can also not rule out other sources;its availability is still disturbing.

sauwah, on 16 Jun 2009

those in power are running this country to the ground. and naturally the animals are paying the price with their suffering and lives. i just heard from a radio featuring a book that focuses on the corruption of the kenyan government ( people ) is out and is based on records done by one young kenyan reporter who used to work for the president of the kenya. and his job was to report on corruption. now he is in england so that he would not be harmed. it’s a tribal thing in kenya. so if you are in power, grab all you can for the sake of your tribe at the expense of the rest. so with such thinking, how will wildlife poisoning be ended?

paula, on 17 Jun 2009

Thanks for all your comments. you are right Sauwah, but don’t forget that there are many really amazing people in Kenya - we just seem to get paralysed at elections and go and vote for the same idiots to run the country (or is it the power that corrupts them… I even went to school with some of these folk, it’s frightening). The book you are talking about is called It’s our turn to eat by Michaela Wrong - she suggests that tribe has a lot to do with the problems - that’s a really stupid scapegoat for the INDIVIDUALS who are corrupt,cruel and plain criminals. We will get them but it’ll take a while. Some of us are sticking our necks out to tell the truth and the public in general are getting fed up with the lies they get fed everyday. So, I”m hopeful….I think that John Mututho is a good man and he’s determined to get Furadan out of Kenya.

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