Furadan not ranked amongst top ten most used pesticides by crop farmers
Category: carbofuran | Date: Sep 22 2008 | By: Martin
I am looking at a 200g pesticide pack just 15cm away on my desk. It is Furadan 5G.
In a workshop on pesticide externalities that I attended hardly a fortnight ago, it turned out that Furadan 5G is not ranked amongst the top ten most used pesticide in a sampled part of central Kenya. Central Kenya is an intensive crop production zone favoured by optmum climatic conditions. Due to small land sizes together with the entrepreneural nature of the native community who grow food crop for sell in the nearby country’s capital city Nairobi, pesticide use is high for maximum yields. It is amazing however that Furadan, an acclaimed effective nematicide is not ranked amongst the most used pesticides in the area.
In my first Furadan survey, I found 88% Furadan availability in the areas that I surveyed. These were mostly around Nairobi. This area is characterized by both pastoralist and crop farming activities areas, though these are markedly distinct. In summary I found out that the crop farmers knew little about Furadan compared to pastoralists. Now that this product is not in high use especially in the agricultural stronghold in the neighbourhood of Nairobi gives an option of its use in the not so far pastoralist neighbourhood. I am afraid this just a confirms my survey’s inference and the way I had wished I was wrong.
It is worrying to think that the sole purpose for which Furadan is meant for as an insect/nematode pesticide is becoming obsolete if it has not already. A killer’s ready preparation for poisoning?
Tags: crop farming, furadan, pastoralist, pesticide
Kenyan’s wildlife pesticide poisoning insensitivity
Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Sep 20 2008 | By: Martin
A dog’s death is causing serious concern in Orleans! Though the poisoning ruling is based on clear symptoms by the dog suggesting anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning rather than toxicological analysis, this just shows how sensitive and animal welfare mindful the Orleans community is. We have lost at least 58 big cats amongst many other wildlife in hardly a decade and seemingly nobody is moved!
Recreating our blog’s banner below, poisoning defines the transition from rich, beautiful,living WILDLIFE to scary, dead WILDDEAD! This is where our insensitivity is taking us!
It is impressive that Health Canada has implemented a number of measures to guard the citizens as relates to rodenticide and pesticide use. In a number of areas in Kenya, poisoning of particularly birds is on-going at the ‘poachers’ expense. Kenyan bird meat consumers continue enjoying especially carbofuran-killed wild fowl meat without fear of toxic effects against them. I should fear a chemical that has a reputation of killing anything from a lion to the flies that suck the fluids effusing from the decomposing lion’s carcass. But I would not mind if a trial on the pesticide carbofuran baited bird going back to some years before many of my generation were born did not result in the death of the ‘guinea pigs’ then, who happened to be our parents’ generation. But where is the medical proof that they did or did not suffer from the effects of lethal carbofuran? Who knows if for sure somebody having died from severe diarrhoea did not contract the diarrhoea after a bite of poisoned meat, or the violent seizures that shook a juvenile to his death were not a violent epileptic feat, but the toxic effects of poisoned fowl after giving the child the lion’s share by its parents to boost his growth to a strong adult. Who even cares to tell them of the lethal effects of the chemicals anyway when the appointed bodies sit tight and complacent that the instruction labels are sufficient. What is more is that the instructions are lacking. Yet Kenyans are not a traditionally an English-speaking community. What of the storage and usage security? A frank statement by a user to the manufacturers, suppliers and distributors of pesticides, in essence poisons that “If we’re going to sell this stuff, we should make sure it’s sold to us properly with proper instructions,”
Reading on the Orleans’s poisoning story, one consumer/user acknowledges that relying on pesticide administration by individuals is not good enough. Kenya’s wildlife is at risk where it has sometimes become a ‘pest’ in certain instances such as where lions attack livestock etc. Yet again we have insufficient control of such cases thereby driving the livestock owners to act in anger and frustration in many cases ending up even in unintended wildlife target death.
One animal welfare personnel rules that the best way to avoid accidental poisoning is to avoid using poison altogether. Poisons are not a way to deal with wildlife. Though many fingers are rightly pointing to the manufacturers and pesticide issues custodians who have the herculean role to bring changes to this wildlife poisoning problem, we all have a role to play.
I am all set for a carcass collection at one target site in Kenya where poisoning is to happen quite soon. I know I will get casualties there and it is sad that I cannot stop it. It is sad that I will be getting samples to prove that Furadan is finishing our wildlife. It is painful that the pesticide custodians who should be the ones out there assessing the situation and doing everything right to control their pesticide product which has turned rogue will be awaiting for my findings only to challenge the finding’s credibility. I am worried that this evidence might only attain the status of being ‘enough’ after the only remaining lions are creeping on their bellies with lack of psychomotor coordination, all vultures will have fallen off the skies, while there will be no twilight laughter from the jovial hyenas!
Tags: Canada, Dog, hyenas, Lion, Orleans, Pest Management Regulatory Agent, poison, vultures
More Predators and Scavengers at risk
Category: carbofuran | Date: Sep 18 2008 | By: Martin
In August this year (2008) I had a noble opportunity of viewing Lake Naivasha’s biodiversity from a fisherman’s view. I mean I hook hiked on a boat ride. The diversity of birds and the jumbo hippos as well as the varied water vegetation were nothing short of beauty. I however observed something that I had never seen before. While enjoying the boat ride, I noticed we had a tail! One Grey-headed gull seemed to be trailing us. The boat man or honourably the ‘captain’ seemed not bothered. I took courage and asked him if he was aware that one particular gull kept flying behind us! He said that it was just hunting. A clever Gull I thought. I had difficulties in distinguishing between sort of similar terns and gulls until I found out that one marked biological distinction is in their feeding mode. Terns are hunters and will hunt and eat small aquatic organisms. The bigger gulls are poor hunters or fishermen and are mainly scavengers. The Gull trailing us was simply taking advantage of disoriented fish, arthropods, etc by the turbulence of water caused by the rotating motor boat’s propeller. The disoriented fish and insects are less likely of swift escape hence the predator swoops down and snatches them. Usually, the gull would eat dead, decomposing fish on the shore due to its less efficient hunting methods. I thought this was a good adaptation, guaranteeing this dominantly scavenger bird fresh food as a hunting predator.
A Grey-headed Gull
In the meeting organized by Wildlife Direct in April, 2008, one scientist revealed that he had observed fishermen in Lake Victoria pour Furadan on the water surface then using motor boats, churn the waters with their boats manoeuvring in figure 8 manner. Evidently, fish came floating from the effects of the chemical while definitely many other organisms must have succumbed to the poison. Gulls occur in Lake Victoria as well. Learning to trail boats that churn the poison-laden waters may however lead them to their tragic end. Many fish still may escape this poisoning death but fall in the fishermen’s nets. Otters are also renowned to have learnt that net catches are rich and will spare their energy and serve themselves at the catch in the nets especially for the nets left out overnight, so more predators and more scavengers to get into this chain of intoxication and possible fatalities. What of the fisherman below, employing his teeth to hold his caught fish? I hope this fish is not an escapee from poisoned water area.
Tags: fisherman, Grey-headed gull, Lake Naivasha, Lake Victoria, otter, wildlife poisoning
The secrecy in wildlife poisoning
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 17 2008 | By: Martin
Yesterday BBC reported on reject on calls for ban on bush meat in central Africa. Frances Seymour, director general of CIFOR - the Centre for International Forestry Research-speaking to the BBC amongst other things warned that “Criminalising the whole issue of bushmeat simply drives it underground.”. He may just have been right especially when I look at the secrecy that surrounds poisoning of wildlife in Kenya.
Killing wildlife in defence against attack on your property/livestock is apparently lawful in Kenya though it is always preferred that you call the local wildlife authority, the Kenya Wildlife Service to come capture the rogue carnivore as it turns out in most cases to come gun down or cage trap the intruder.
This is by no means a justification for wild poisoning of the carnivores and consequently vultures, hyenas and other canids. I was looking at the notes I made on the questionnaires to the bird poachers in Busia and could not stop trying to get a link to the secrecy that characterises Kenyan hunting (partly through poisoning) and Central Africa’s. in trying to understand the poisoning I have modelled the case of poisoning of carnivore and scavengers which is almost wholly not meant for meat trade or other animal parts for trade based on a by the way question that I asked some bird poachers in Busia on what they would do if against their odds they were forced to quit poaching (birds) especially using poison. A few realistic ones said they would have to fall back on what everybody else was doing to sustain their livelihoods. In my reasoning, I cannot stop thinking that the poachers especially in and around the National Parks and Reserves that survived the harsh enforcement against poachers in the late 80’s, early 90’s and reformed for better to be just like their non-poaching native colleagues, turned to livestock keeping and crop farming. While poaching was ‘banned’, fear caught up with everyone which indeed did our country a lot of good by boosting tourism through securing wildlife. But the wildlife conflicts did not end as well as human population growth applying more and more pressure especially on animal reserves thereby prompting the predators to roam to the proximities of man’s holdings to satiate their hunger .And so the situation of wildlife poisoning started appearing ‘boldly’ in the 90’s with easier detections in non-park and reserve regions like western Kenya where spread out birds for purchase for domestic meat consumption obviously betrayed poisoning as a poaching technique. This averted the focus from the reserves and parks where a poisoned animal is highly likely to be cleared out by the alert scavengers. Soon however, scores of vultures would die and this being irregular, it was later to be revealed by autopsy results that they were poisoned. In brief I suppose secrecy embodied in poisoning evolved from the well-meant enforcement against wildlife poaching.
I cannot help pondering if this could be a solution to wildlife poisoning other than for carbofuran which honestly is almost a threat to everything living. I mean, If I must kill wildlife that is a threat to me and what is mine, I should do it but not use a poison which means a policy review to include harsh preconditions such as this kind of killing will only be legal if my physical security is at its best and meets another precondition that outlines how you should reinforce your physical security to accord it secure.
Just thinking aloud so as to involve you. What do you think?
Tags: BBC, Carnivores, Central Africa, CIFOR, Kenya, National Parks, National Reserves, poachers, scavengers, wildlife poisoning
supervision lacking
Category: Pesticides | Date: Sep 16 2008 | By: Martin
Hi. Apologies for not posting on the blog for a while. I just emerged from a pesticides workshop in which notably and commendable were farmers; thanks to the organizers of the workshop.
What emerged of animal poisoning from this workshop from the farmers was their commendable knowledge on pesticides. They all seemed to acknowledge the fact that pesticides are poisonous afterall. They were frank enough to disclose that abuse was going on and in a number of cases it turned out disastrous. Incidences such as use of a pesticide called Karate to spray animals against external parasites and consequent literal fall off of the skin; use of an acaricide to disinfect the wounds of a de-horned cow resulting in death of the cow among others were revealed. The bottom line to this however is the fact that such ideologies would be passed from one farmer to another without and in most cases the source of the information was not of expertise standard. Being a very poor farmer (in terms of knowledge) myself, I have lived outside the era when there were Agricultural Extension Services. Many of our generation hoover in the same protracted ignorance since from the look of things, the responsible government department just froze that service. We are therefore living in an era where an extension officer is almost out of reach and in case of an emergency, an equally ignorant peer’s advice is much welcome much as you know you are doing it on trial and error basis, but hopes are held high that your advisor’s perspective will work alright. The farmers in the workshop however showed great surprise at the details of intoxication and vowed to be ambassadors of enlightment.
Early in the year, I also held a meeting with a group of pastoralists from a part of North Eastern and Rift Valley,Kenya at Isiolo and Maralal respectively. But this was neither a workshop nor an informed meeting to them.It was apparent that they did not deal closely with an extension officer. While I was mistaken as one at first, these people went on to shower me with predator problems making it clear that if I was interested in bettering their livestock then that would come later because to begin with, they needed to save their livestock if at all they were to have anything to improve on. At the backyard of this area is the Samburu National Reserve. The livestock keepers enumerated lions, hyenas and leopard as the troublesome culprits stressing that livestock killings were a daily occurence!I asked them how they countered this problem. Little did I know that their trust would fade away fast. After consultation in the local dialect of which I do not have any vocabulary, one of them stated that they hunted them down but they implicated locals from a neighbouring division. When I asked them if they knew about carbofuran they played absolute ignorant. They however shifted to describing strychnine since it seemed not my interest. But the Samburu surrounding has been renowned for lion and vulture mortalies following carnivore-killed prey laced with carbofuran with recent mortalities having been reported this year. After the workshop, I have contemplated this encounter with the pastoralists in Isiolo and Maralal. Critically looking at things, I believe lack of supervision has in part contributed to the pastoralists turning to the lethal pesticides hoping to avert the situation.
What should be done:
- I feel there is need to hold a workshop with a sampled small number of the pastoralists from the various poisoning areas.
- If possible, they should be brought to Nairobi or any non-rural set up. Detaching them from their areas where emotions and pressure from other locals not to easen on the losses they have encountered on their livestock can make them relax just like the farmers in the workshop above and then let them share the reality while educating them more about the detriments of the pesticides being used in poisoning of the cats and scavengers.
- This way we can try form an awareness ‘extension service’ now that the relevant departments don’t seem to be alarmed just as we are at Wildlife Direct and the entire wildlife conservation fraternity
This can be done with your continued support. Kindly keep supporting us and reading the blog. I am speculating-and God forbid- that with intensifying dry conditions for much of the remaining part of the year the seizefire of poisoning may be lifted in some areas,but we will let you know how we will in our utmost possible efforts deal with the situations.
Tags: animal poisoning, Isiolo, Kenya, Maralal, North Eastern, Pesticides, Rift Valley, Samburu
Raptors
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 13 2008 | By: Martin
Hi,
I just thought it would be refreshing if you took a look at these handful photos for your weekend. These are part of my collection that I have from wildlife poisoning surveys.May be you could test your knowledge on these African raptors as well and put it as your comments? I will give you a hint for each. By the way a number of these raptors are vultures. Raptor refers to a birdof prey in contemporary ornithology. Traditionally the term was reserved for killer birds of prey; I mean birds of prey that literally killed their prey for eating. Vultures are scavengers and therefore would not qualify to be called raptors. They (vultures) are now also considered as raptors simplified to mean birds of prey. Raptors are sadly part of biodiversity that have and continue to suffer heavy casualties from pesticide poisoning. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy!
Hint: A snake-eater
Hint: A young bird or immature whose adults could attain one of the three colour morphs known of this species.
Hint: Also an immature bird; one of the two species of East African vultures whose young individuals are so identical.
Hint: The commonest East African vultures.
Hint: Afish-eater.
Pleasant weekend and keep checking our blog.
Tags: pesticide poisoning, raptors
Soil Cleaner at risk?
Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Sep 12 2008 | By: Martin
I have not been in touch with worms for a while. Today’s story on BBC on earthworms caught my attention because a worm is the sublect of interest. Nematodes which are worms are the intended target by carbofuran nematicide.
Nematodes are mostly are free-living; found in soil where they are important decomposers. Some are parasitic, including many parasites of commercially important plants like strawberries and oranges. Nonetheless, they are worms!
But earthworms are worms as well; they have distinctly segmented bodies that is, their body is made up of repeating units. Yet earthworms and nematodes are both in this case in the soil, soil worms and therefore a possible target for carbofuran either way! What is worse is that carbofuran is turning out a dreaded biocide rather than a nematicide.
Earthworms are important soil burrowers therefore important in soil aeration, an important condition in crop farming. In addition, they are soil detoxication facilitators. They would aid in metal toxins removal from the soil as reported on BBC in Earthworms to aid in soil clean up.
Tags: annelids, BBC, carbofuran, Earthworms, nematodes
Wildlife Reserves and Parks safe from wildlife poisoning
Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Sep 10 2008 | By: Martin
Hi,
Since the month of June, some rains have been pattering the Kenyan soil, while wild herbivores have been doing well (even the wildebeest migration brought carnivore food to Kenya) and pastoralists are apparently not having any quarrels with carnivores (One of the significant human-wildlife conflict reasons). But even before then, since April 2008, Wildlife Direct has made a lot of noise to the public, raising attention on the wildlife poisoning that had assumed an uncontrollably wild trend. Still, some awareness has been raised with a couple of farmers showing some interest in knowing the monster behind the pesticides that they so preciously spend o for the best crop yields.I believe the two forces-noise making and favourable weather conditions- have merged to bring a seize fire on the wildlife poisoning. Unfortunately though, some renown wildlife poisoning areas are still reported with the harmful trend going on. I have summarized the information since the Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign by Wildlife Direct began in april, 2008 until now in maps showing the top-rated/reported poiosning areas, some of the affected wildlife in these areas and the current poisoning status in the areas in Kenya-current-wildlife-poisoning-status-in-kenya.pdf
Please keep reading our blog.
Tags: Carnivores, human-wildlife conflict, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, Wildlife Direct, wildlife poisoning
Inland biodiversity threat
Category: carbofuran | Date: Sep 09 2008 | By: Martin
All our posts have been centered on large animals, illustrating carbofuran poisoning in lions, hyenas and vultures. The explanation behind this lies in effective exposure to the chemical pesticide.Their mode of feeding-carnivorous and scavenging -therefore accords these organisms the highest vulnerability. This just proves that ingestion or swallowing is the most effective way of getting the toxic substance into a living organisms body system. Further, fish have also been reported to have been killed through Furadan poisoning, other birds (non-vulturine), wildebeests, warthogs, crocodiles, just to mention those.
Clearly, out of the 8 divisions (technically and more precisely reffered to as phyla, these are sponges, worms, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) of the members of the Animal Kingdom, it is not just fish,mammals,birds and reptiles that are suffering but also the other mentioned in brackets but sponges. Only the sponges can be said at a lower risk given that they are oceanic rather than part of inland biodiversty. The large volume of the oceanic waters in which they are found also confers them some safety since it would require more carbofuran than can be produced on earth at the present time to get the waters concentrated eneough to destroy the sponges. This post will therefore focus on alleged or reported highly suspected carbofuran poisoning cases for smaller or inconspicuous or ignored animals.
Insects and their likes, which constitute the division (phylum) Arthropoda-the largest animal group constituting 95% of the animals- in as much as pesticides are designed to kill them, I would say, have been ignored. I believe no organism is too abundant not to be destroyed altogether or be driven to extinction. In one of the posts in another of wildlife direct’s blogs, there were lions reported to have died from Furadan poisoning. Shockingly but also reported nonetheless was that flies that came to get tit bits of the fouled carcasses also died on their meal. Well, I have also been able to get reports that Honey bees have died of Furadan poisoning in Naivasha and Kitui, Kenya. Honey bees not only make a highly nutritious and medicinal substance, honey ,but they are also very important in pollination of our rops and other plants. In Naivasha, Kenya, Furadan is used to kill termites and is proclaimed even more effective than the pesticides intended to kill termites. In Busia, Bunyala, the Leech was a feared worm by the paddy field workers and the blood sucker would stick on one’s upper legs and suck blood till one used a knife to cut it off. Though a worm, it falls in a different category and it poses no threat to rice or any other crop. Presently, the farmers have noted the worm has declined and not as common as it used to be in the paddy fields. A few cannot stop thinking that Furadan may be behind the decline in the leech numbers.
If I recall clearly, carbofuran is branded a nematicide. But what has been witnessed is an indiscriminate mortality situation cutting across the entire animal kingdom. Carbofuran leaves a lot to be desired as far as its pesticidal role is concerned. It is a chemical pesticide that leaves many questions unanswwered such as if it can cause secondary poisoning and the scope of the broad spectrum of living things that it can wipe out. There is great need for more intensive testing of the effects of the pesticide and if at all it has to remain in use as a pesticide, it should prove its ‘innocence’ and subsequently may be win again the confidence of wildlife conservationists.
Tags: amphibians, animal kingdom, arthropoda, Birds, bodiversity, carbofuran, fish, fishtoxic, honey bees, hyenas, insects, lions, mammals, reptiles, sponges, Tanzania, termitesKenya, vultures, Wildlife Direct, wildlife poisoning, worms
Secondary poisoning by carbofuran?
Category: Hippopotamus, Organophosphates, Pesticides, carbofuran, lions | Date: Sep 08 2008 | By: Martin
Hi,
Secondary poisoning refers to when a consumer gets intoxicated by eating another organism that has the poison in its system.
Secondary poisoning is known in a number of other chemical pesticides for instance organophosphates. In carbofuran, a carbamate, it is argued whether or not secondary poisoning actually does occur.
It is a known fact that carbofuran is a sleek killer especially in birds. It is also true that organisms with bigger body mass die after a longer time compared to animals with smaller body mass which die faster. I have witnessed small seed-eating birds succumb to carbofuran within 5 minutes while bigger Storks may take up to half an hour or more. In simple explanation,the chemical must get incorporated in the consumer’s tissues and if this consumer dies and is predated upon by another which in the process also gets intoxicated, then secondary poisoning is said to have occured.
There have been reported cases of possible secondary poisoning in Kenya: lions getting intoxicated after feeding on poisoned hippopotamus, vultures after feeding on poisoned carnivore. Today I talked to a senior scientist in a prominent organization who pointed out that after working it out with the chief vet of their wildlife conservation organization, the Lethal Dose (LD) required to kill a hippo is actually much lower compared to the hippo’s body mass. So, some some granules of carbofuran sprinkled on the grass will intoxicate the hippo (and any other herbivore) and even though the lethal dose required to kill the hippo is not attained, the dose may well be enough to kill a wild dog. Nonetheless, my reasoning in the lions getting intoxicated by the alleged carbofuran poisoning of the hippos is that the hippo may have taken much more of the carbofuran and while this may have paralysed the hippos nervous system, not all of it was ‘used’. Therefore, the ‘excess’ carbofuran that circulated in the hippo while still alive and was not ‘used’ in paralysing the nervous system of the hippo got to its tissues and the amount being equal or more than the lion’s lethal dose (the lion’s whose mass may just be about a quarter of the hippos) got the lions got intoxicated.
If that is so and if it is man who had eaten the hippo(as he has been known to in some places), then may be he would have probably succumbed to the poisoning much faster than the lions. Still on man, as earlier said, I have seen Storks take over 30 minutes before dying after eating Carbofuran-laced snails. Man eats these guys regularly. Since the similar organophosphates’ poisoning results to chronic/persistent effects in wildlife and people, there might be chronic effects due to carbamates as well and cumulatively, these could be catastrophic. I cannot avoid worrying that in the long run, most of our wildlife and man are actually already intoxicated and continue to be by carbofuran.
Just a thought for the day!
Tags: , carbofuran, lions, Organophosphates, Pesticides, secondary poisoning, vultures
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