Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Jul 23 2009 | By: Martin Odino

We visited one poacher’s home at his invitation in Bunyala. This man is a renowned veteran hunter and he confirms in his melancholic narration of how once wild ungulates -’large’ antelopes, gazelles and warthogs- as well as hares roamed the hilly relief features of Bunyala.

The old man, probably in his late 60’s says he still hunts but the frequency of going game hunting has gone to almost none given the fact that there are no longer many thick bushes as they used to be where they would flush out the animals . Instead, bird hunting has become a more reliable mode of poisoning but for the high cost of the pesticide which they use for poisoning the birds. According to him, him and the other bird hunters still get Furadan but he says they deal with middlemen and even they do not know the actual source of the pesticide much. He then asked me if I did not know that the government had banned the chemical. I think he was just siziing me up to know if for sure I am ‘the government’. Well he said they are all ears to the wind just in case somebody was out to arrest them.

In the 80’s and when game hunting was the giant source of wild meat and income, my interviewee (the old man) says he used to lead a team of other men, most of which he had trained himself. A pack of hunting dogs would accompany them and there was guaranteed succesful killing of quarry on every hunting expedition. He says they would ambush and kill the animals using clubs, spears, bows and arrows after having been led by their ’sniffer’ dogs. This activity is no longer fruitful and the wild game have just gone under. Bird poisoning then picked up.

Traditionally, game birds were ‘intoxicated’ using traditional brew residue or grains soaked in local brew. The birds would then get disoriented, some even dropping to the ground then they would be picked for human consumption. The same way, Furadan poisoning evolved. This picked up easily because manpower was there, just diverted from game poaching. Further, Furadan killled numerous birds which is what was required if the income return from the birds poisoned had to measure up with the returns from game poaching.

But the old man sighed and said that even with Furadan, this contemporary form of poaching (bird poisoning) never really measured up to the old game poaching. His general observations are that birds are on the decline. He also says poaching, (it became poisoning) was and still is an economic activity, acording to him just like there were and still are traders, farmers and fishermen in the local set up, adding that poachers who are now employing poisoning will continue to as long as there is a poison to be used. If anything, there is no other animal to be poached.

The old man is a proud poacher but certainly not proud of what bird poisoning has made of him: he still wallows in poverty, despite bird poaching providing quick money . His home only boasts 3 dilapidated houses, of which 1 is his son’s who is also a poacher. I asked him if given that he was the living grand master behind the poaching and poisoning apprenticeship if he would help me change the minds of the men wasting their lives poaching poor birds by advocating for alternatives that I preached and hoped to fund raise for. The man mischievously asked if i would pay him. Well, I told him I would look into that but I think if he meant well for the society, then he would be relieved and satisfied to see that his community was on its feet after abandonng degrading and derogatory poisoning even without pay.

My host’s home: This photo was actually taken inside the compound which is demarcated by widely spaced tree line with decoy storks for use in poisoning seemingly being the only life forms gracing the home.

Besides being a poacher, my interviewee is a herdsman by day and watchman to one well off homested by night.

It is a society in dire need of liberation much as the process is painfully slow and frustrating to the persons and process of trying to impliment it.

Tags: Bunyala, furadan, Poaching, poisoning