Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Sep 09 2008 | By: Martin Odino

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

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 01 2008 | By: Martin Odino

Amphibian herpetologists (reptile and amphibian experts) know better that amphibians and frogs in particular are almost perfectly reliable indicators of the pollution status of a water body.

The nuisance croaking at the river in the evening or at the start of the rainy season is therefore an indicator that the river is not badly polluted or at least ‘clean’ because frogs are surviving there afterall.Taking a look at BBC news’ Science and Nature page today, the top story is: Experts Poised for rare frog hunt.

We all acknowledge the tough phase that frogs are going through espacially those occuring where the deadly chytrid fungus is sparing almost none of this division’s/phylum’s members. The fungus known to thrive on the frog’s skin impedes skin breathing, therby literally clogging the gaseous exchanging membrane. I believe it is this same reason that makes the leaping guys sensitive to polluted waters beyond a certain threshold limit. They must literally feel they are being chocked in polluted waters!

But I wonder what might be significant endangers of these amhibious beings. The last update of the gobal status of amphibians, otherwise, Gobal Amphibian Assessment was in 2006 and habitat loss tops the list of endangers of the frogs while pollution is second. That means pollution is also a top endanger. Looking at the habitat preference/choice by frogs, flowing water masses are their second most preferred, whereas this is the second most threatened habitat. Indeed in these man has been notorious to wrongly perceive flowing rivers/streams as the best place to empty his effluent as it wil be washed away. That means the frogs’ habitat preference makes them vulnerable to the second most threatening agents in effect in the flowing water habitat which almost absolutely are pollution and global warming, itself a result of pollution.

The loss of the members of this group of organisms would be devastating, starting from simple loss of an indicator of water purity in traditional Africa and may be elsewhere as well, to only expert-known complex imbalances in the ecosystem of which the frog is a part.

Toads are also frogs, but never vice versa. Looking at the cane toad above, frogs are vital, yet they too are at war with toxins in the surroundings.

Tags: amphibians, BBC, frogs, global warming, Gobal Amphibian Assessment, Pollurion, Toads

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 30 2008 | By: Martin Odino

Hi all,

In Kenya, some infuriated pastoralists have been known to set out poisoned bait to nab the culprits that killed their stock. It is however a crude technique since nobody herds the lions (other carnivores) towards the poisoned bait so that in the end the real culprit is the one condemnmed to death when he feeds on the fouled food. More oftenly, other innocent victims fall victims of the poisoning as well.

Farmers in “America’s Salad Bowl” are turning into hunters _ stalking wild pigs, rabbits and deer _ to keep E. coli and other harmful bacteria out of their fields. It’s part of an intense effort to prevent another disaster like the 2006 spinach contamination that killed three people, sickened 200 and cost the industry $80 million in lost sales. Spinach grower Bob Martin has even poisoned ponds with copper sulfate to kill frogs that might get caught in harvesting machinery or carry salmonella on their webbed feet.

It is a sad affair especially because the exact source of the contamination was never discovered, but scientists suspected cattle, feral pigs, or other wildlife may have spread the E. coli by defecating near crops.

We are not just talking of killing wildlife or amphibians. Native trees and plants are being uprooted as well and fences being erected to make the land inhospitable to wildlife. It is an entire ecosystem destruction. Couldnt the analysts and experts find out the real reason behind the vegetable poisoning? must it be that one (actually several) be destroyed to save another? May be these organisms being destroyed are not responsible for the contamination.

Tags: amphibians, Carnivores, cattle, copper sulfate, E.coli, ecosystem, feral pigs, frogs, Kenya, lions, pastoralists, poison, Wildlife

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