Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Oct 06 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear Readers,

Apologies for my irregular writing lately. Many atimes I have been confronted by unavoidable field challenges unfavourable for blogging but I will keep doing my best to fully update you whenever the opportunity allows. My posts are therefore bound to be long but interesting so please kindly hang in there and read them through.

The latest development at Bunyala Rice Irrigation Scheme is the expansion of the cultivation field at least up to twice the former size. While the current size is at least 500ha large, the paddy fields continue to be reclaimed every day extending in all directions and I am informed the locals have been advised to leave no fallow land uncultivated by the national agricultural authorities. It is expected that the rice yields will alleviate the famine situation in our country, Kenya.

A small section of the extended agricultural land. The trees to the right are part of an untended live fence to a home. Irrigation water has spread into the compounds of most surrounding homes.

Much as this establishment sounds nobly humanitarian, the farmers are pessimistic that the intensive rice growing will bring them any economic fortune on their part. They boldly proclaim being robbed of their effort-draining toiling and moiling by the irrigation board which provides rice farming inputs enticingly labeled subsidized. The farmhands (casual laborers) who also happen to be the land owners say they tediously tend and eventually harvest the crop needless to add are responsible for the daily airing and drying of the cereal at the irrigation board’s storage premises awaiting to be sold. It is the irrigation board that indeed springs back into action to sell the processed cereal when the time comes. From the sale, the irrigation board then takes back what the farmers owe them and the remaining penny is forwarded to the farmers. In the words of the farmers that I talked to, the amount is best described to range between peanuts and negative, to mean you may still owe the board especially if the crop fails and this debt is carried forward to be recovered next season.

From my research perspective, my study site is greatly altered especially the transects that I have been working in. There are more of these now and are tougher to navigate because the maiden ploughing involves ‘deep flooding’ with the water depth in the feeder canals extending up to hip high for an average Kenyan man. My assistants and myself walk the whole day to be able to survey the whole site for bird poisoning. We must admit that in a number of cases we miss out on the poisoning going on on the distal end of the study site which extends beyond the comfortable optical aided view of our binoculars.

Taking GPS readings and recording bird mortality (myself writing from a low culvert slab and my assistant close by looking on far afield; the other is the photographer)

Talking of poisoning, it is of course Furadan poisoning of birds. Much as the farmers are staggering to keep faith that their intensive rice farming should pay this season, the season has come with fairly good news of no Furadan for rice planting! It does look like someone after decades of deviance is being careful to observe the law for once of Furadan not being allowed for use in rice fields. It must follow the persistence at Wildlife Direct to question the explicit law breaking by the supplier in getting the poison to Kenyan irrigation schemes. Bravo on this move! But the pesticide is still available.

Dangerously wielded by radical bird poachers, the pesticide continues to crash populations of birds through deliberate poisoning for human consumption:

The photos below were taken 2-3 days ago.

Poisoned African Open-billed Storks in a sack

A poacher making away with dead birds in a sack

The purple colour of Furadan showing on the snail baits for the storks; the little faded shade of purple is most likely because the bait was prepared the previous day

Bounty of the birds being the migration period is not making it any better.A flock of Black-tailed Godwits.

An unrecovered carcass of a poisoned Black-tailed Godwit by the poachers; one of the cases where we missed out on a bird poisoning incident. Small fishes that come with the flood water had nibbled on the bird’s neck tissues. A larger fish would probably gulp down the whole carcass and also die.

The poachers say the Furadan is still available from sources they are not comfortable to talk about owning up only Uganda as one of these sources. The pesticide’s identity is kept top secret to any stranger and every bit of its evidence is destroyed almost as soon as it is purchased but for the poisonous granules of course. The small pack (see below: note there is no label on the container) now costs around 8.5 dollars (Ksh 600).

Nonetheless, we are still doing our best in trying to educate the poachers most of whom are torn between the vegetable farming idea and keeping on with the poaching. One factor stands in the way of those undecided. Furadan availability! The good news is a number are increasingly becoming convinced that vegetable farming might just be a better idea and one has offered to look for a piece of land where we can start from.

An education session: Poachers peering at knowledge in my guide book

Please keep reading. I will be giving you more poisoning updates inclusive of a video clip of how storks are beaten to their death and captured once disoriented by Furadan poison shortly.

Technorati : Bunyala Rice Irrigation Scheme, Furadan, Kenya, Poisoning, Wildlife Direct

Tags: Bunyala Rice Irrigation Scheme, furadan, Kenya, poisoning, Wildlife Direct