Stop Wildlife Poisoning

At Wildlife Direct in Nairobi, I sit at a place that overlooks a modern neighbourhood and I have a bird’s eye view of birds soaring/flying above the houses: swifts, pigeons and raptors dominate the show.

At Wildlife Direct offices, located on the srventh floor in Nairobi,I sit at a location where I overlook a modern housing system. I have a great bird’s eye view of things and can bear witness to the diverse birds that I see soaring/hunting over the quarters inhabited by humans. Swifts, Black Kitesand Pigeons dominate the show.

I live in a neighbourhood where nothing is short of modern living: beautiful houses with at least a car packed outside every house. On weekends when I am staying within the confines of my small compound, I only need to sit at the doorstep and I will see a Black Kite perched on an electricity pole, eating the remains of a piece of fried chicken that was left by a well-fed child, disposed in the bin in the backyard but somehow the Kite, given its sharp eye sight got it. Augur Buzzards also emit their repeated nasal “nhwaa!nhwaa!…” as they hunt around away from their otherwise normal hunting grounds-open fields with mole excavations. These guys are mole hunters. Well, there is a small open field closeby, so this partly justifies their presence but occasionally they swoop downwards and pick up something;definately food remnant. A walk around the perimeter wall,what I wouold describe as the estate’s backyard, Marabou Storks, Sacred Ibises and Cattle Egrets almost always post sentry at about any one given time along a polluted stream at a dump-site(now cleared but the posting sentry culture still continues).

The main highway through Nairobi otherwise Mombsa road heading eastward has become a breeding site for ciconiformes-the family of storks, herons and egrets. Heronries (mixed congregations of the ciconiformes) occur on most Acacia trees, clustering at the different separated tree groves that border the highway.

The whole point here is not how Kenyan birds have become urbanized but that they have dived into the stresses of the city especially into the stresses of pollution-noise, smoke, food from refuse dumps, whereas water in some cases is sewage water. To a greater part therefore, these stresses are of intoxication form.

Statistics show an increase in respiratory illnesses in humans in most cities around the world and Nairobi is not an exception, majorly because of the intoxicants from vehicle and industrial carbon gases. Talking of exhaust and industrial fumes, the birds in the city ‘look dirty’ in particular the smaller birds and in particular the House Sparrow that ventures close into proximities of the fumes-emitting vehicles and industrial premises, even nesting on some of these buildings. To a keen observer, the white-coloured egrets on Mombasa road are only naturally,clean looking and white as their counterparts out of town when they moult then the clean moult is subjected to the smoke and dust and quickly becomes brown or even blackish. I can only wonder how the inside of their bodies is? what of their lungs? and what of their livers that have to struggle detoxicating their blood? I know there is serious intoxication going on in these creatures despite their quest for the town-bound movement being satiated.

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Tags: Black Kite, carbon gases, Egrets, Herons, House Sparrows, Intoxication, Nairobi, Sacred Ibises, Storks, Swifts, Wildlife Direct

Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) is one of Kenya’s local agricultural produce improvement institutions. Several centres of its kind are located in various parts of the republic. The KARI, Katumani station is an outstanding of these centers, not by virtue of having come up with the fast maturing maize breed, Katumani, after which the centre is named but also by being in the ideal environment where such development can be conceived, tested and proved as sufficiently a success. The 3-month maturing corn breed was thus ‘developed’ in the same tough-dry, with irregular rains semi-arid land-environment where it would satiate the local peoples hunger.

Last weekend I visited the KARI Katumani quarantine station where I spent much of the weekend birding and filling my lungs with fresher rural area air. Apparently city pollution and the cold in Nairobi were not doing good to my respiratory system.

So, this is what I saw while scouting for birds:

Take a closer look at one of the bottles in the lady’s hands. Whatdo you think is the substance in them?Hint: this is an agricultural premise.

Now take another look at the crop, the top of which is the maturing grain. This is definately millet but something else seems to have been yielded of the crop and looks khaki in colour and paper-like.

Well it is paper. Can you guess what for?My first guess was so that birds do not feed on the crop. Well, that is wrong! It is to prevent cross pollination since these are thoroughbreeds with certain ideal properties so any pollination from neighbouring farms will dilute the ideal property, but still, I believe secondarily this also accords some protection to the crop from the birds.

The real control against the pest birds feeding on the crop however is from the lady, (and many others who were shy to face the camera) in the field who use the bottles in which are pebbles and persistent shaking as well as action of the sun has scoured them to look white, so if you guessed that the bottles had milk in them then you were wrong!Sorry for my wrong hint!

Even better is the attitude of the ladies who vent out noise to scare away the stubborn birds-Red-billed Queleas, widowbirds and numerous other voracious seedeaters. They say this is their source of income. They also argued that if chemical spraying was applied in which case KARI is an institution that can easily afford that heinous venture, thendefinately the effects of thechemicals would be felt by humans even long after the crop has matured.

The message is short, clear and noble: No poisonous sprays for safe food crop and meintenance of our jobs!

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Tags: KARI, poisonous sprays, Red-billed Queleas, Seedeaters, Widowbirds

Hi all,

We are now struggling with pushing on with the implimentation of the outcomes of the just convened meeting of the Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force at Wildlife Direct, Nairobi, Kenya . We still hope Richard Leakey’s call for ban of carbofuran will yield a reasonable response from the government. Meanwhile we are trying to make headways with a review of all that concerns carbofuran which is essentially our mission. Hopefully, we will garner enough of more of the necessary evidence (of course in addition to what we already have) against carbofuran to get everybody’s attention and only justifiably lay to rest the chemical that clearly is dangerously outliving its time. I say enough of more necessary evidence because we hope it will not be deemed insufficient. I just do not know when the evidence will be sufficient to the local and international custodians of this chemical and many others. What it means is that the chemical continues to act out there both in its good ways (limited since even proper use is harmful; EPA will agree with me) and limitless lethal toxic ways. I hope when the information is enough, our wildlife populations will still stand at handsome figures though. I hope this will not be when almost, if not every organism, including humans, when tested they will positively have carbofuran in their systems (A sad case for Alaska where pollutants are just in almost every living thing which is what I have stumbled on, thinking that I would read something far from toxic chemicals).

The wild supply and haphazard distribution of the pesticide Carbofuran will therefore continue facilitating poisoning of wildlife, birds, fish and who knows even of human poisoning whose facts lie locked in the confines of lack of data and documentation. Such is the desperate need of heed at which we stand.

After ‘a break’ from head aching matters of carbofuran, today I ventured into the current affairs of the fate of our planet and read of the goings on in the U.S.

Based on a conference held in July 17-20 the15th Protecting Mother Earth conference - organized by Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) where there were more than 600 attendants, mostly from indigenous nations of the United States and Canada, but also from as far as Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, and Europe Came together. Generally, they talked of global problems, challenges and solutions. They discussed energy and climate change as it affects indigenous peoples. Stories were told of health damage and ecological destruction brought about by oil refineries, coal power plants, gold mining, and nuclear military activity.

I think the whole issue of energy and climate change just infers global warming. Indeed this is documented of the conference of Minnesota’s new proposed 1600-mile oil pipeline extension which opponents say would contribute significantly to global warming for the way oil is extracted from the tar sands, which is extremely energy intensive. Tar sand oil extraction requires stripping all the trees and vegetation, scooping up and steaming the sands. Potential oil spills on Minnesota’s wetlands is also a concern. IEN states that very few of these projects are assessed for their social and cultural costs or their cumulative environmental and health impacts, which would cause fragmentation of the boreal forest, disruption to indigenous cultural life-ways and production of greenhouse gases.

Here we go again, global warming directly linked to a toxin-highly acknowledged energetic fluid-oil- which will intoxicate wildlife, fish, birds and humans during its extraction, distribution and use for man’s energy requirements.

Shawna Larson, Ahtna Athabascan and Supiaq, Aleut/Eskimo from Alaska, working with the Alaska Community Action on Toxics said that heavy metals and highly toxic persistent organic pollutants, such as DDT, PCBs, and dioxins, some already banned and rarely used in the Arctic are found in very high levels in native people and wildlife in Alaska. These pollutants used somewhere else are transported by wind, water currents and migratory species and concentrate in large quantities in the Artic. Alaskan indigenous people according to their cultural traditions feed on local fish and wildlife, which are considered to be the most contaminated in the world.

At this point, I think we should refresh our minds on the contaminants of Alaska.

For the whole story, read Talking about the future of Mother Earth.

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Tags: Alaska, Canada, carbofuran, DDT, EPA, global warming, Indigenous Environmental Network, Kenya, PCB, Protecting Mother Earth, Richard Leakey, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force, United States, Widlife Direct

During our meeting yesterday Angela from WWF told us about the problem of pesticide dumping in Africa constitutes one of the most serious environmental crimes that she is working on. The implications for Wildlife are enormous. Africa it seems, is Europe’s most popular dumping ground for radioactive waste and toxic chemicals. Although the European Union agreed in 1988 to implement a ban that prohibits the export of hazardous wastes from developed countries to the developing world, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand refused to sign up. There’s big money in dumping and this breeds corruption.  It is claimed that each month more than 500 container loads, of 400,000 dead computers, arrive in Nigeria to be processed. The problem of waste dumping hit me in the gut when I realized how it affects individual people. You may have heard about the dumping of petroleum products in the Ivory coast 2 years ago by a Dutch firm.

In August 2006 a local company hastily fly-tipped truckload after truckload of chemical waste at around 15 locations around the city. The United Nations says the dumping of the 500m tonnes of waste led to at least 16 deaths and more than 100,000 other victims needing medical treatment.

The legal case against Trafigura, the Dutch multi national shipper company that dumped the residue, was dropped in an out of court settlement in early 2007 when they agreed to pay the Ivorian government around $200m (£100m) in one of the largest ever payments of its kind. This money was to pay for the clean up and for compensation to the victims who each received approximately 500$

The waste, which contained a mixture of gasoline, water, caustic washings and the poisonous gas hydrogen sulfide, was unloaded in Abidjan from the vessel Probo Koala on August 19 2006 and then dumped in open air sites throughout the densely populated city. According to this news article Abidjan may lose up to 1,000 more people as a result of the toxic dump which is emitting choking fumes. Local authorities claim that over 70 people have so far died from inhaling the fumes; most of them children and the aged. Figures from the World Health Organization indicate that 135,000 people have sought medical treatment for various ailments arising from the toxic dump. The Ivorian Health ministry puts the figure at 131,113. A thousand deaths will mean plucking out one fifth of the population of Akouedo, one of the worst affected communities. It is believed that this is a conservative estimate, the casualties are likely to be much greater.

To me it’s obvious that Trafigura accepts responsibility for the crisis although they claim ‘officially’ that the payment is not an admission of liability but that it was ‘made out of sympathy for Ivorian people, and it also disputes whether the chemical slops were the cause of the large number of medical cases’.

The multinational, which specialises in trading oil and metals, undertook to identify and clean up any sites which could still contain toxic waste linked to its shipment. The deal is good for everyone except the people of Africa. the Ivory coast cannot pursue Trafigura of any further charges, and the two French executives of Trafigura, Claude Dauphin and Jean-Pierre Valentini, were released and never charged. The Ivory Coast government agreed not to pursue Trafigura for any further compensation as part of the deal.

The bad guys include officials who endorsed the dumping and Ivory Coast’s prime minister responded by dissolving his 32-member cabinet as a result.  Understandably the public are still angry and they set fire to the home of the Abidjan port director and attacked the country’s transport minister.

That was the 18th August 2006. Well, it’s two years later and guess what? The money has been paid and the waste is still there and people are still dying.

While Trafigura cannot be charged in Ivory coast the world is not standing back. This week an Amsterdam court will start hearing evidence relating to the Probo Koala waste scandal. This case is about the Probo Koala and does not affect the dump in the Ivory coast but their handling in Amsterdam. It now emerges that Trafigura, chartered a vessel, which at first attempted to have the waste processed in Amsterdam, but the company it contracted for this rejected the cargo because of its odour. Trafigura later ordered the Probo Koala to set sail for Ivory Coast where a local company registered only a few days earlier had promised to do the job.

Meanwhile British lawyers have mounted the largest class action yet lodged in the UK courts for up to 30,000 Africans allegedly poisoned by this toxic waste dump. This action is being brought against Trafigura, a London-based multinational, over the dumping in 2006 of 400 tonnes of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.

According to Times online Martyn Day, senior partner with Leigh Day & Co stated “That we can bring a case with 30,000 claimants from a far-off land to trial within three years of the events shows that in England we have a system for group claims that is second-to-none in the world in holding multinationals to account for their actions,”

The law firm was brought in by Greenpeace, which in turn was asked to help by the Ivorean Government. Until 2006 Day was chairman of Greenpeace UK and is still on the executive of the Greenpeace Trust. By bringing the claims under the ‘no win, no fee’ scheme Greenpeace we can develop a treasure chest to help to finance large cases like this.

So you’d think like Trafigura has learned a lesson right? Wrong!

According to Afrol News on 24th June this year a vessel from the shipping company Trafigura, “High Land”, landed in the Nigerian port of Lagos where it was observed off loading allegedly dangerous and poor gasoline, aimed at West African consumers. The vessels previously stopped in Tema, Ghana, where it may also have loaded off bad gasoline.
Trafigura is the world’s third largest independent oil trader. According to their own figures, last year’s turnover amounted to US$ 51 billion. The company so far has denied any wrongdoings and claims to operate by strict ethical guidelines.

This article explains that “The Basel Convention was adopted in 1989 largely due to African outrage over dumping incidents and schemes such as the infamous Koko beach dumping in Nigeria in 1987. The original Basel Convention which demanded controls on such exports however was seen by most countries as being far too weak to control the toxic waste trade which can involve great profits and potential therefore for corruption. Thus in 1995 the Convention Parties decided to create the Basel Ban Amendment – a total prohibition on all forms of toxic waste exports from OECD/EU countries to the rest of the world.

This amendment however, while implemented by the European Union, has not yet entered into global force and ironically many of the countries that are currently having their workers and environmental health severely impacted by hazardous waste have failed as yet to ratify it. These countries include, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, and Cote D’Ivoire. Some countries like the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea have openly opposed the global ban. Worst of all the US, the nation that produces the most hazardous waste per capita, has failed to ratify the original Basel Convention let alone the Basel Ban Amendment”.

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Tags: Africa, Martyn Day, Poisoning wildlife, Probo Koala, Toxic waste dumping, Trafigura

Apparently poisonig has become the stylish technique of depressing our wildlife and all for the wrong reasons.

With the poisoned tip of a metal arrow piercing her right leg, a pregnant elephant stumbles miles through the African bush towards her death.

After two days of agony she falls to the red earth, while her killers, following on bicycles and carrying butchering knives, wait for the end to come.

In the darkness of a Kenyan night, the four poachers watch as she first loses her unborn calf in a spontaneous miscarriage provoked by the poison in her body.

An hour later, after the 35-year- old elephant dies, they move in - hacking off her face to steal the two precious ivory tusks which will make them rich for years.

Soon, they hope, the tusks will have been smuggled out of Africa and be on their way to a factory in Beijing, to be carved into jewellery and chopsticks.

Just a few weeks ago, though, these poachers were caught. James Ekiru, the head ranger at Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary (which is in sight of Mount Kilimanjaro and two hours’ drive from the port of Mombassa), says: ‘We followed their tracks, and 24 hours after they killed this mother elephant, we found them with the tusks lying on the ground.

‘They were starting to butcher her meat - cutting it into kilo pieces. We arrested two of them, but two more got away. They were local men.

‘We suspect the elephant was killed “to order”, and that her tusks would have been smuggled to China.

Read it all in Massacre of the giants: Once hunted to near extinction, Africas elephants slowly pulled back from the brink

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Tags: Kenya Wildlife Service, poisoning, Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary

Hi all,

Is this why those known to be poisoned are poisoned?

In my trip to Samburu National Reserve 2 weeks ago, the three day game drive yielding no male lion on scene sent my mind wild with thoughts about who is most lkely to fall victim of poisoning and why. For sometime I could not stop thinking the lionessses were widowed! until, Shivania, a lions expert conducting studies on the big cat in the area enlightened me that there were particular areas you would spot the lions and that they did not stick around the lionesses.

Before this revelation and later, Shivania’s eventual confirmation that the male cats were about and intact, I could not stop thinking that they had been hunted down and killed, another terrible outcome of human-wildlife poisoning. Afterall the surrounding community are overwhelmingly pastoral and such incidences would be favoured in such a set up. But lionesses would fall victim as well, especially since the would be the more ferrocious hunters with the lions known to be lazy beasts who spend long hours sleeping.

But yet again, why not have a homogenous pattern of mortalities in all predators and scavengers? Then there could be another reason, not necessarily applicable to only the lions, but in the entire biodiversity realm. I came up with the following hypotheses:

1. Some members of species characterized by hierarchial feeding behaviour are more vulnerable to getting poisoned than the other members - hierarchy in feeding implies the strongest, biggest or simply the leader gets the bite of the food first. Normally,if the prey is poison-laced, it may be with furadan, may be strychnine or any other lethal poison out there, the leader will most likely take in the fresh, thick layer of poison as he breaks into the prey. this means he/she is most likely to attain the lethal dosage of the poison hence has the highest possibility of succumbing to the poisoning. The other members of the species fight and tussle over the remnants of the poisoned prey may be shaking off,rubbing off with their own bodies or just get small chunks of the meal, lowering their chances of imbibing the poison up to the lethal dosage threshold, hence according them some degree of reduced vulnerability to dying from poisoning. This what I thought had become of the lions of Samburu but fortunate enough it was not the case. Nonetheless, do you also see this tendancy?especially the scientists out there in the field?

2. Members of species of large congregations of predatory/scavenger species without well-defined feeding hierarchy have a lowered chance being killed by poison-laced prey: I have in mind the hyenas and wild dogs. Usually, only one or two baits will be laid out for the predators. In this case these guys feed haphazardly, fighting, snatching from one another and sometimes even ending up losing the prey when stronger cats show up alarmed by their squabbling. Though some degree of hierarchy may be portrayed in the hyenas and wild dogs, with the stronger members having some advantage on the food ration, still this is very diffuse and so poisoning efficiency is to a significant degree lowered.

3. Many species congregations exhibiting species hierarchy of feeding make ’starter’ species more vulnerable to dying from poison-laced bait. The vultures fall in this category. There are 8 East African Vulture Species. Other than 2 species,the Lammergeir and Palm-nut Vulture whose feeding behaviour (specializes on eating bone marrow) and feeding site prefernce (scavenges on shorelines and river banks) respectively alienates them from feeding with the others, the other 6 are more or less dependant or symbiotic when it comes to feeding; the largest-billed, robust Lappet-faced Vulture opens up the carcass, also having priority on the meal. The same role is also excercised by the second runners-up, the Ruppell’s Griffon and White-backed Vultures. These latter two are however more common than the Lappet-faced Vulture. These species that initially open up the carcass are what I earlier referred to as the ’starter’ species. Clearly therefore, these are subject to initial exposure and chances that they will feed on much of the poison and get killed are much higher than their weaker-billed, smaller-sized counterparts, the Egyptian Vultures, the Hooded Vultures and finally the White-headed Vultures. As a matter of fact, of the shocking furadan caused vulture poisoning incidences recorded in Kenya in 2004 and 2005, Ruppell’s Griffons and White-backs were the most victims.

So in short, it seems the more ‘organized’ feeders are at greater risk of getting extirpated through poisoned baits than the ‘disorganized’ feeders. Hierarchy favours posoning. Thus is the sunnary hypothesis.

Thanks for reading and please keep supporting this Wildlife Direct’s stop wildlife poisoning blog for its sustenance in advocating against wildlife poisoning.

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MWEA, SAMBURU, KANO PLAINS, MARA FINDINGS

Hi all. I have been back in the office for 3 days having just toured some of the areas where there has been documentation of carbofuran poisoning. All seems well at the gaze with the full spectacle of the wild animals and birds feeding, playing and even in the act that will culminate in breeding. But is all really well? Indeed it is good news of no poisoning for some places and still bad news of poisoning for others. Nonetheless, for the good news I managed a smile on the last day or is it night of the trip.

Yesterday I received a call alert (‘flash’) from an unfamiliar number. I flashed back but no return flash to signify any urgency. I ignored the number but while I scrolled through my call log to make another call this morning, I stumbled on the number that I was flashed with yesterday. It then struck my mind that I had noted down some numbers during the field trip. I checked my field note book and there I stumbled on it! It belonged to a certain guy in Mwea who I had approached and faked that I needed bird meat. We had then fixed a meeting for early this month. We agreed that he would alert me when he was ready and that he would link me with a bird meat vendor who poisoned the birds. You would not suspect that such a deal can take place in such a place especially given that everybody else seemed busy planting rice.

In the neighbourhood of Kisumu town, in Kano plains, some kilometres past the site that was Ahero Rice Scheme, there is an out grower scheme where locals are growing rice on individual rice plots. During a short stop over, I observed a lot of birds flocked in the place and a couple of farmers were out working in their plots. I talked to one old woman to know if the birds were not a problem at harvest time. She said they were indeed but her grandchildren would chase them away by wails and beating of metal cans. I then asked her if she thought killing of some of the birds would be a solution but she said she did not think it was necessary adding that in any case, birds were being poisoned for meat. I then confirmed that after all, there is poisoning in the area. For a while there was on-going bird poisoning in Ahero Rice Scheme but with the stalling of the operations of the rice scheme, bird congregations have reduced and Furadan supply for use in the irrigation scheme also cut, bringing a cessation in the poisoning frenzy.

Samburu NR seemed all tranquil, with the expected heat dominating the local climatic conditions and emphasizing ‘this is Samburu’. For three days I roamed the reserve with my friend and spotted many carnivores and scavengers. We got to see six lionesses in total but were disturbed that we had spotted no lions absolutely during the three whole-day drives around the national reserve. In fear that poisoning might have taken the lives of quite many of these I ended up talking to an expert in the area who advised me to relax and that the kings of the jungle were around, not always in company of their ‘wives’ and there were strategic localities where these could be found. I was glad the place was safe for the time despite earlier recorded incidences of carnivore poisoning in the area, though she added that she was in the process of getting to find out more about poisoning in the area.

Masai Mara also turned out looking good. I even passed by the Mara Conservancy incognito. The area has had the most recently documented cases of poisoning-this year, 2008. With hippos and lions as the reported victims, both seemed to do just fine. It was captivating witnessing lion/lionesses feasting, playing and in the act of breeding in one encounter.
The lioness below took advantage and got “the lion’s share!”

while the lion paid attention to his queen in an imminently heated up act that would bring forth another generation!

The vultures on the other hand looked good sprawled on the grass, not dead but waiting for thermals.

While others did not mind the flies after an unpoisoned meal.

Generally the presence of the Gnu on the first of their biannual migration to and from (Tanzania for this case) Kenya and Tanzania enhanced the bountifulness of wildlife in the Mara. Isn’t this beautiful?

Keep reading our Wildlife Direct’s blog for the latest in the wildlife poisoning scene.

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Tags: Kano Plains, Masai Mara, Mwea Rice Scheme, poisoning, Samburu National Reserve, Wildlife Direct

Hi, I will base this write up on actual observations in poisoning scenes that I have witnessed.
A lot of people who kill and/or eat poisoned wildlife/birds have a number of justifications that sometimes leave one in a difficult position in trying to understand and deal with the problem of wildlife poisoning. Some will tell you that the land in their localities does not yield sufficient crop any more and that only birds can complement their staple carbohydrate uptake. Wildlife/bird poisoning therefore turns out an occupation and source of income for some and a cheap food source for the others. Still, others go on to state that wildlife and birds are created for man’s utility. In other words, man is the master.
It is however a painful realization when you come to learn about the forms of humiliation, trauma and cruelty that is triggered by poisoning. I saw my relative poison puppies using a rodenticide because they were just too many. She did this repeatedly every time the dog gave birth. It was absurd. It would be better if she told me that she was doing so because the pups were too many for her to feed, or because there was nobody to give the pups out to. Even before the puppies died and were still wreathing in pain, she took them and dumped them in a pit toilet. I watched in awe not knowing what to do. What a master this one is even if we are the masters over animals.
Two years ago, I also witnessed 2 dead Zebras on the shores of Lk. Bogoria, one of Kenya’s Rift Valley lakes. The game ranger who was accompanying us said there was possibility of the Zebras having died from thrusts of poisoned spears. The full grown Zebra had two deep slits on its hind quarters where apparently the killer had thrust his spear. The young Zebra had a deep slit on its abdomen side. There was a noxious foul smell from the two corpses. The ranger had been there about twelve hours earlier and the killings had not taken place. Likely, these were the acts of poachers. But why kill if you will not consume?
The most disturbing poisoning memories I have however are those of birds. I have witnessed birds baited by poisoned food materials, captured and enslaved to be used for the success of man’s desires, in this case maximize on the bounty of baited birds. These birds are always kept under conditions of depression, always tethered to a peg either inside or outside the house, ferried to and fro inside and outside the house as it pleases the captor. The manner of bird handling itself elicits a chill to an observer where the bird is held dangling, by the wings. Still, the bird’s primaries (longer, outermost flight feathers) will never grow to full size since the captors will always pluck them out so that the birds may not at any one time be able to fly away and rescue themselves from slavery. The captors then use them as Judas for other birds where the birds call out to others to lure them to a poisoned meal. Sooner or later the birds flock the foraging ground which is actually a set up and the food is laced in poison. The poison used in this case was carbofuran (Furadan 5G) and In a matter of time the birds started wobbling in gait, falling down and panting while others collapsed to their death in a short time. Not moved by the miserable sight of disorientation and death, the poachers then stepped in the death arena armed with sticks, sacks and basins. Small birds that had not died had their wings broken while the bigger birds had their legs battered by the sticks, leaving a site of hopping birds with broken legs and some lying mute on the ground only imaginably shedding tears of pain. Some of the big birds whose aggression did not succumb to this pain had their necks twisted around. In brief poisoning in this case facilitates treachery and gross cruelty.
But what is the orthodox reason behind poisoning? Crudely necessary, though sensible, poisoning should be directed to an organism that has caused nuisance to a point of extremity that there is need for it to be killed and be done away with, NOT EATEN. Thus, poisoning can be deemed ethical. I have been to three bird poisoning sites and none of the poachers in these sites poison birds since they are a nuisance. They do it so that the birds can be sold as food to humans and those who buy the birds do so to eat them, knowing full well that the birds have poisoned. Many people have forgotten about the ethics of poisoning. Please help remind them.

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Tags: carbofuran, poisoning, Wildlife, Zebra

Hi all,

First of all, Martin thank you SO much for all your posts, you’ve put so much time into them and they are really informative. I have been horrified to read about the ongoing indiscriminate use of Furadan, it’s a wonder we have any wildlife left in Kenya at all!

I have been very remiss about posting blogs, but I only have a few more weeks in lab now and then I’ll be able to finish and submit my thesis and do other things! I’ve been developing forensic methodology to detect diclofenac in the hair of livestock animals and the feathers of vultures. You have all undoubtedly heard about the Asian Vulture Crisis but if not please have a look at: http://www.vulturerescue.org/.

Why look for diclofenac in hair and feathers? Well, for one thing, they are very resistant to environmental degradation, much more so than tissues like kidney or liver, which are usually analysed for residues. Drugs of abuse have been detected in human hair and lots of environmental contaminants have been detected in feathers, so it’s just a matter of seeing whether the principles of incorporation and detection apply for diclofenac and other drugs in the same category.

Now I say ‘just’ a matter, but I’m a wildlife biologist by training and not a chemist, and this is a very technical project. Since I have started this work there have been many times when I felt completely overwhelmed by the chemistry and thought I must be the wrong person to be doing this research. I had to learn how to use a GC-MS (which stands for gas chromatography mass spectrometry).  Very rarely have our instruments worked the way they should, if at all. Often they have required weeks of maintenance. And all the time I am receiving messages from colleagues that residues of diclofenac are still being found in carcasses in India, that diclofenac was registered for veterinary use in some parts of Africa, and here I am tinkering away trying to get my equipment to work and give me the results I need to finish so that I can maybe, perhaps make a contribution to help the vultures and other endangered or threatened wildlife in some small way. That was my intent, anyways.

I have been fortunate enough to live and work in some really beautiful wild places and I feel happiest outside doing field work. I used to study little Eastern Screech-owls, surely one of THE most uncooperative birds ever, and some of my fondest memories are of sitting in the bed of my truck in the dead of night in the middle of an apple orchard listening to families calling to one another. So having spent three years of my life doing lab-based work has been torturous in many ways. I have felt a restlessness  I didn’t know I possessed, a sense of being trapped, cooped up with no possibility of escape. I desperately miss being in the field, although one of the most obvious drawbacks there is coming across the carcasses of wildlife species.

But I’ve gained some very valuable insight since I started this work, insight that’s helped me understand and appreciate the complexities of technical analysis, much more than when I was collecting samples and handing them over for someone else to analyse. We are conditioned, especially in North America I think, to view forensic analysis, whether it is for investigations of incidents against people or wildlife, with awe.  Television programmes give us the idea that you pick up a sample from a crime scene or from the field then put it in a baggie and hand it to a technician who pops it into a machine that tells you what nasties are in it and what they’re used for, essentially revealing to you how they got there in the first place. In fact what actually happens is that you don’t often know what you’re looking for when presented with a sample, and need to keep an open mind. The residues may have been in the sample to begin with, but it’s been outside for so long that the sample itself has degraded and is no longer useable.  It can take a few days to prepare a sample for analysis, and when you run it you then have to tease out all the different compounds that show up. If the cause of death is not something routinely screened for, or a compound that is causing mortality for the first time, or its structure doesn’t quite match up with the instrument’s reference library, you may miss it altogether.

Even at the best of times instruments like GC-MS or HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatography) which are high precision and absolutely ESSENTIAL for positive identification of residues of pesticides or harmful compounds in wildlife samples require a lot of tender loving care.  They are fiddly, so you open them up to fix one problem and you unwittingly cause a whole slew of secondary problems. Labour and parts can be very expensive too. But the running and maintenance costs are worth it because these instruments are the best tools we have to positively identify the presence of residues in wildlife samples. The awe is warranted in this sense, it is amazing to me that someone had the wherewithal to put the chemistry and physics and mechanics together, these instruments are fantastic!  And we take them so much for granted here in the UK, and in North America. They are just part of the background in many of our university laboratories. But in Africa, the reality is that very few university, government or industry laboratories have them.  So how do we monitor for presence of contaminants in wildlife species, and how do we gather reliable scientific evidence to document the damage that compounds like carbofuran are having?

I just wanted to give some perspective of the logistics involved in documenting evidence of wildlife mortality and identifying the cause, whether it’s exposure to diclofenac or carbofuran, or strychnine.  It’s a mammoth task in itself, let alone given limited resources. And I wanted to say that even though I’ve missed being in the field I’m really glad I took on this project because of what it’s enabled me to learn. Not everyone gets to take apart expensive pieces of equipment like I do (and I confess it it gives me a certain devilish satisfaction to do so when the instrument is not behaving itself!), nor do they get to experience the process of wildlife forensics from the field to the analysis. And do I ever admire the hard work and dedication of the people working diligently in the field and in laboratories throughout Africa.

These instruments aren’t used to full advantage if the samples aren’t received in good condition, or the screening method is restricted in the number and types of compounds that can be detected, or the resources aren’t available to ensure they are kept in proper working order.  A lot of good work is being done to remedy this though, as you will know from reading Martin’s blogs and the other blogs on this website. The monitoring efforts and instruments are only as good as the people running them, and we are blessed with some GREAT people!

When I finish this work I’m going to look for funding to help with provision of laboratory instruments and technical support  as well as running costs, starting in Kenya. I’m collaborating with a UK-based charity called the Foundation for Analytical Science & Technology in Africa who provide laboratory instruments and ongoing technical support to university laboratories in Africa.

Now, manufacturers such as FMC have a lot more resources at their disposal to mount a case in their favour, so contributions from all of you are always very welcome, and very much appreciated. We need all the help we can get! Come to think of it, perhaps FMC would care to help as well, as a show of good will, to ‘offset’ the fact that they continue to manufacture and sell Furadan despite being aware that it is widely used to poison wildlife species in Kenya and elsewhere. Ah, but they must realize that the lack of resources in this area works all too well in their favour, for the moment…

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HI. I am so sorry for being ‘off’. I hooked a hike. I am in Sopa Lodge in Samburu National Reserve for the night as I type. See the photo below. Sorry for the poor quality: Power was running low and the photo was taken in the night at around 22.15hrs. yet the lighting conditions of my simple room were not the best. The place has neither cell phone nor internet connection but I will post this out tomorrow once I am somewhere there is accessibility to network within the park.

A friend invited me on a bird survey/guiding tour. I thought it worthwhile to accompany him because I noticed his circuit included places where wildlife poisoning is known to occur. While the circuit begins from Nairobi, it covers areas of Thika town outskirts, Mwea, Samburu, Baringo, Kakamega, Kisumu Masai Mara and then back to Nairobi. I have been to some of these places and I thought it wise to get to observe for poisoning and interview one or two people.

Having come through Mwea Rice Scheme, I was able to talk to two people. The first directed me to a second party who i made a ‘false’ appointment with to get poisoned ducks from early next month. We even exchanged contacts and he is eagerly waiting for the time to reach and I will be his guest. He told me he does not poison birds himself but there are specialists who poison the birds using Furadan and when the time came he would link me up with them. It is a pity that poisoning is shielded so that it goes on behind the scenes. This makes detection very hard and therefore this situation may run out of hand if it does not receive immediate attention. Here I was standing right in the face of poisoning while all seemed so well when in fact it is otherwise. In addition he told me the National Irrigation Board carries out aerial sprays against vermin birds when the crop is maturing and almost ready for harvest. Unfortunately, their exercise is indiscriminate. He told me that this year, the exercise will be on about November. The young man further pointed out that these poisonings are executed mostly at roosting sites and birds die en masse. He said that nobody collects the birds, more so smaller species. Large species collected, mostly ducks are taken for consumption. He mentioned three species that he knew were falling victim of aerial sprays: Egrets, Herons and Ducks. At the time I joined my friend and he expressed disappointment that he had not been able to locate one species known to occur here amongst its other known few, restricted ranges. Honestly I could not help wondering quietly if the poisonings were not contributing to the scarcity of the bird species(Yellow-crowned Bishop).

More will be on your way as we get to the sites

Here’s me posting, after I got to Safaricom network (at Viewpoint, in Samburu Game Reserve) area 30hrs later.

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Tags: furadan, Mwea, poisoning