Informant reportings from colleagues visiting Ahero in the past have always been that doves are being killed using Furadan for human consumption. Well it looks these are just ‘hard times’ targets when vegetables are hard to come by to suppliment the staple starch meal which is ground corn cooked into a stodgy cake-like lump.

The sight of ducks in my guide book to the locals evokes memories of delicious meals graced by the wild birds-the tree ducks. The residents of Ahero are quick to point out that the birds are ‘fat and tasty’. One boy went on to described how just a fortnight ago he baited about 10 ducks and in 5 minutes he had meat to be shared by the entire extended family homestead. He soaked rice in Furadan solution and added mud in the mxture to make it look like left over rice from harvesting. Both species of Tree Ducks fell victims-White-faced Whistling Ducks and the Fulvous whistling Ducks. He then gave me directions to the site where he had poisoned the Ducks and true I found a number of their kind in the flooded rice plot.

Comparing Bunyala Rice Irrigation Scheme, Mwea Rice Irrigation Scheme and Ahero Rice Irrigation Scheme, I must say I have counted a modest number of Tree Ducks, otherwoise Whistling Ducks in Ahero; at one plot measuring about a quarter an acre, 29 strong of Fulvous whistling Ducks and 23 White-faced Whistling Ducks and these the people said were too few to poison bear in mind there are other tree ducks in other flooded plots.

White-faced Tree Ducks in the background, Fulvous Tree Ducks in the foreground

More Fulvous Tree Ducks

More White-faced Tree Ducks

Unlike in Bunyala where for months now the most I counted at a site which was about the only site, I only got half a dozen at the most. In Mwea, I only counted solitary individuals mostly averaging a bird a day. I can infer that Bunyala and Mwea have seen intense poisoning by Furadan compared to Ahero. In the former two sites, the ducks are poisoned to be sold to the available local market. In Ahero, poisoning corresponds with huge flocking by the bird and is virtually for domestic consumption rather than for sale. Everyone has an idea of how to poison using Furadan and sets out bait when the birds are in large numbers at planting. It is eating wild meat that is in season; it is only sad that the method used is not absolutely safe. Cases of accidental human poisoning from feeding on poison because one did not wash hands well after handling Furadan are known though isolated but known nonetheless.

Locals are well versed with other methods of killing wild birds pointing out one traditional method which employs a rod ending in encyclic hooks to maximize on the kill. A crude method but safer in the sense that the meat is not intoxicated and the birds killed are way fewer. But Furadan came in with rice planting and as a result a lazier way to kill the birds developed, more productive in bulk killing but involving handling of the poisoninus substance, Furadan.