Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Jun 26 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers,

Time for me to pack up and get to Nairobi for proper medical check up and some good rest. Mwea is pleasant countryside, Mt. Kenya towers in the sky prominently especially in the mornings and evenings for anyone looking around for something such as myself. A vast stretch too and the sun comes down hot and drenching at day time while the night the Malaria vectors come humming closelst itching to inject the deadly plasmodia into your system. It has been Furadan that for many days during the week has dragged me out of bed and got me watching and observing even if it meant sitting at one spot for 8 long hours. But for a few feathers I saw in the remote parts of the rice scheme, a good thing I thought I did not see any signs of bird poison.

What does not look ok is that in prevalent dry conditions, birds would be heavily biased to the wetlands, Mwea has the usual Yellow-billed Storks, Hadada Ibis, Sacred Ibis, Cattle Egret, Intermediate Egret, Black Smith Plover Black-Winged Stilt then the area’s speciality the Yellow-mantled Bishops and the widely distributed Yellow Bishops …and NO DUCKS. One African Fish-Eagle showed up in the skies one day and that was just about it.

I must admit I have been pretty bed-ridden and during the time I kept relying on one local scout’s information. At some point I felt he was demanding a lot of money and when i did not get to give him all of it then I think he would not scout for me. I even felt he would get desparate and stage a poisoning so I just scared him and told him that actually people using the Furadan would be arrested if they were still doing the same and it was known that some scouts who should be informants were known to be also poisoning birds and humans by taking to them the poisoned birds.

I still needed confession from another party of Furadan availability and my target, the irrigation board. I only acknowledged that this is the National Irrigation Board, Mwea Branch. It had other initials that even the person I was to talking to did not know what they stood for. Nonetheless, the board guy told me in whisphers that DUCK poisonig using Furadan still goes on. Rice still in husks is let to soak in Furadan solution and removed and dotted on a raised mound of earth (specifically for purposes of poisoning) in a rice plot. The ducks come to roost but eat the laced rice and drop dead. Like the scout, this board man said the poisoned ducks are sold to drunks and unsuspecting poor homes. I sought to find out where the poachers are still getting tthe Furadan rom when I thought it is withdrawn and he said they buy it still from agrovets. I have made visits to a few agrovets and they do not stock it!

Still housed by the Mwea board is a group called Kirinyaga Wldlife birds conservation group.

Their story is the same. Their recent incident was early morning of 24/06/2009. They found a poacher collecting ducks in a sack. Poisoned by Furadan as usual he said. Well the team was off to showing some tourists where they could shoot ducks for sport hunting. These two killing parties always meet at the duck roosts but for some reason the outlawed is never given away.

Pondering about where Furadan is still coming from, the most recent close up with fairly high resolution leaves me a little puzzled. In a wild, heated up debate with my co-author, Darcy , that we were trying to defend our report (the page Furadan in Kenya)to Juanco and PCPB guys, we picked up one authenticity of the FMC produced and Juanco distributed carbofuran; it would have repetitive diagonal juanco sps in pink and background of label.

This label background looks everything genuine but does not have the pink and diagonal pattern repetition of juanco sps. Counterfeit? Other copy cats? We need a urgent ban on carbofurans!

Tags: furadan, Kenya, Mwea Rice Scheme