Stop Wildlife Poisoning

I have mentioned in a number of my earlier posts of confirmed allegations that White-faced Whistling Ducks were the prefered targeted bird for wild bird meat by poachers and consumers some years back. While the African Open-billed Stork is now the most dramatic in terms of manner of poisoning and numbers poisoned, the White-faced whistling Duck once stole this show.

For the fourth month running in this survey, I have only seen 6 resident White-faced Whistling Ducks in my study area; and 6 others in a nearby ox-bow lake of River Nzoia. While the resident population of these birds in the study area really counts for this survey in the sense that I hoped I would witness the recovery process of this beautiful duck’s population, following cessation in their baiting, it appears I may not witness this phenomenon afterall. Other forces are in play here!

Other ducks occur in the wetland that is the irrigation scheme in numbers that supercede the dismal number 6 of the White-faced Tree Ducks. Comb Ducks or the Knob-billed Ducks seem to be thriving far too well compared to other ducks in the area, namely Egyptian Geese and Spur-Winged Geese besides the White-faced Tree Duck.

An impressive flock of Comb Ducks flying in to the rice scheme to forage.

A section of the same flock. A trial to get a better silhouette of the birds. See the dark comb at the head on closer, keener look.

Population declines in the White-faced Whistling Ducks are said to have caused the poachers to shift their poisoning efforts to the next vulnerable species, the African Open-billed Stork. The poison baiting of the whistling ducks was such that rice grain mixed with furadan was put in small dishes and put just under water in the paddy field where the ducks would come dabbling. The ducks would then get to the poison site and in a bit find the easy bait and gorge on it only to end up dead from Furadan’s intoxication.

When the Tree Duck’s numbers were no longer attractive to the poachers’ business, they (poachers) abandoned the remaining for dead and engaged themselves to poisoning Storks assuming a similar ‘wipe-out’ strategy.

Recently, on one occasion during our usual assignment to count the poisoned birds in Bunyala Rice Scheme, a poacher approached us informing us that we needed to keep our distance not to interfere with ‘his’ birds that were eating bait. I realized he was holding an egg and I ventured to ask to know to which bird it belonged.”The White-faced Whistling Ducks. I always pick them up then I will cook and eat them at home”, he answered. It made sense because it was around the same area that I had met the cosy pair of White-faced whistling ducks with a Ruff contented in the company of the two.

The White-faced Whistling Ducks and their friend, the Ruff.

The cosy ducks. Probably the mates whose egg was taken away.

The egg on the ground. The poacher did not want to be seen holding it in the photo.

It is argued by the poachers that some Tree ducks come at the planting season and the population is larger when water is pumped into the Rice scheme. This does not mean all is well because the resident population is the one that breeds in the area. The immigrants from other wetlands once well fed will take to the wing and go breed where they came from. So it appears that the few white-faced whistling ducks at the site, though not targeted for poisoning at the moment, have to struggle against the raiding of their eggs from their nests. With the poacher’s thorough in the rice fields especially while locating their poisoned birds, then the White-faced Whistling Duck might not recover modestly fast afterall, or ….never recover altogether.

Please keep reading.

I have seen birds in thousands dot the skies above Bunyala rice scheme. A deceptive view when you have not witnessed the poisoning documented on this blog.

Many of these, once poisoned soon become food.

No doubt the largest proportion of poisoned birds are consumed by humans. But even with the little informal awareness I have tried to raise amongst some poachers and consumers, majority adamantly stick on to the belief that the furadan that intoxicates the birds does not affect them, arguing that they have been on that diet for a greater part of their lives, averaging between 1 & 15 years.

I realized a variety of raptors at the rice scheme in the recent survey which was characterized by poisoning mostly of doves and pigeons. I could not help inferring a positive corelation of more raptors hunting about the field with increased poisoning of medium and small seedeaters, namely doves, pigeons and weaver birds.

On two occassions, I believe the same immature Lanner Falcon knocked and caught an intoxicated dove in mid air. The falcon, wrongly reffered to by poachers in vernacular by a term whose equivalent in English is a shortwing (technically an accipiter or the group of goshawks and sparrowhawks) is common during poisoning of doves and pigeons. The raptor is notorious for disorienting the seedeaters settled to eating bait and the poachers loathe it since once dispersed by the falcon who strikes one of them, the targeted seedeaters tend not to return to eat the bait and fly away the farthest they can to safety.

Such pigeons eating bait constitute quary for the falcons and the disoriented less powerful member is easily killed.

Disoriented, intoxicated doves perching on nearby euphorbia are also caught unawares.

I also saw a melanistic Gabar Goshawk pursuing a flock of doves stirred up from bait. The gabar and the Lanner Falcon were too fast and brief for my camera.

Black-chested Snake Eagles are common in the skies above Bunyala Rice Scheme. I particularly have been observing an immature member of the species who on some occassions comes down to feast on a dead birds out in the field.

Same bird (Black-chested Snake Eagle), airborne and perched

The male Eurasian Marsh Harrier was a daily routine hunter, harrying over the fields pursuing scurrying pigeons mostly in the evenings. His particularly less swift movement compared to the other birds of prey predisposes him to relying on poisoned weaklings from furadan poisoning.

The Eurasian Marsh Harrier.

The Black-shouldered Kite might be safer, relying mostly on locusts and other insects. He might be in greater danger during poisoning of the likes of Abdim’s Storks during which time termites and locusts are laced with furadan to poison the birds.

The Wahlberg’s Eagle was seen to steal moments to also scout the rice plains and I saw it attempt to pursue some small birds on a few occassions but was mostly mobbed by the Black-chested Snake Eagle.

A Wahlberg’s Eagle, hunting above the rice scheme, then perched for a break.

But how come these raptors seem to be doing just well?May be the furadan in the doves is little and does not attain the lethal dose amount in the birds of prey. But then what of the repeated exposures to the poison? I believe it is putting some strain on the predators’ immunity and could with time cost them their lives. Or are the likes of the falcons dying far away? I followed one observing it using my binoculars and he flew with his catch well beyond the farthest that my binoculars could see.

This guy’s feeding habits may not be very appealing but probably he amongst the few birds treading on safer grounds in these poisoning fields.

Yak! That is a big toad!

I was not sure if the fish would go down his throat. It did!

Even baby fish were not spared!

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In the last 2 months, I have been exposed to the world of bird poisoning using furadan to have realized that the activity is a profession with ranks of expertise, areas of specialization and characterized by greed for success or ambition if it was a legal undertaking which comes out by the defined hunting boundaries during the activity.

The experts train new recruits. The programme is a sort of apprenticeship. A willing or interested chap joins the expert whose knowledge about the birds he poisons is awesome but whose killing methodology of the same birds is horrifying. Below is a drowsy migrant wader, intoxicated from eating furadan-laced termites.

The experts are well versed on the feeding and behavioural ecology of the birds of their interest; they know where to find them including the preferred habitat and specific sites in the habitat. I was impressed by one hunter when he told me about where I would find two different species member of the same family; these are the Wood Sandpipers which he told me that they preferred the pools inside of rice plots, whereas the Green Sandpipers preffer foraging aong the water-filled trenches that bring water to the rice plots. This turned out true in most cases. So the student learns in the way of the teacher and will earn independence if he so wishes when his teacher pronounces him as qualified. My deeper understanding of this is that over the years, the birds that have been lost to poisoning are way too many, especially with the inception of more poachers into bird poisoning.

The apprentices are taught generally on the various methods of poiosning birds. During poisoning, seasonal specialization where particular methods are used to kill birds observed to be abundant or in season are employed. Some poachers however are biased to particular modes of poiosning throughout. I realized that these modes of poisoning come with equipment or requirements. Other than the captive storks to aid in baiting especially other storks, there are containers or buckets for carrying and lacing the baits with Furadan. Below are two poachers riding off from their poisoning venture.You will realize a hoe attached at the back of the leading bicycle in the photo below.

This is used to dig out various insects that the poachers lace with furadan and lay the baits out to respective birds to intoxicate them.

(Dug out distributor trench embarkment that was also a termite mound; once the termites are exposed, they are picke up, laced in furadan and ready to kill the birds)

Then there is the bicycle! Seems a universal piece of equipment. Not only is it a means of carrying away the quary but a means of reaching to far-located poisoning sites. In actual sense, a number of the poachers come from quite a distance to this poisoning site that is Bunyala Rice Scheme.

(A harvested section of Bunyala Rice Scheme . In these plots, poisoning is currently taking place)

(This portion of the rice scheme has not been harvested. Once harvested, it will also become a poiosning field)

(Meanwhile storks and other birds enjoy in the fields that still have rice crop).

At the poisoning sites, my team has difficulty when sometimes we have to get data from the several poachers that swarm the fields. This has been observed on days when it drizzles a little the night before. But on many of such occassions, we end up having minimal mortality, thanks to what I have refered to as greed for success in the first paragraph. Usually, the poachers establish strategic poisoning spots in the rice plots where they set their decoy storks and poison baits. They then must startle a flock of storks settled close by which will see the decoys set by the poachers and fly to them. Since on such occassions there are many decoys set at various locations of the poisoning site, the startled storks tend to get confused and are restless, moving from one set baiting spot with decoys to another. Further, the noise from squabling poachers over right to startle the storks to fly towards their baiting set up confuses the birds further. The end result is every other poacher running about and shouting in the field trying to get the storks to fly to their furadan-laced snail baits. Usually the flock of storks fly away during which the grumbling infuriated poachers now turn to baiting smaller birds using the insect baits laced in furadan.

(A portion of the flock of the contested for African Open-billed Stork)

It is only a matter of time however and the stocks will be back. With many poachers gone, the patient one has the whole flock to himself, and with the storks hungry, they eat and many succumb to the poisonous pesticide.

And so bird poisoning is just another profession, but an illicit and barbaric one where good knowledge about birds is used by the poachers to destroy them.

While it is more obvious that there is poisoning of small to medium-sized birds using Furadan around Bunyala Rice Scheme, the larger raptors are seen to kite, soar and hover searching for their food. It is almost hard to suspect that even the birds of prey are possible victims of  Furadan posoning because; nobody directly targets raptors for poisoning and the issue of secondary poisoning by Furadan poisoning remains a debatable theory. But reality is that they too are subjects of poisoning and the locals will not spare them for a delicious accompaniment for the staple maize/millet flour preparation otherwise locally known as Ugali.

The Western Bandded Snake Eagle below was photographed perched on a tree overlooking one of the paddy stretches and where poisoning was reported to take place. The Western Banded Snake-Eagle is one of the scarce Snake-Eagles of Kenya with the preferred range of this species known around this region in Kenya. A threat by Furadan to this species in this region therefore means a big risk to this species population.

 The Western Banded Snake-Eagle is not  purely a snake-eater and will eat other non-snake prey. The eagle was overlooking the rice fields, possibly scouting for weakened birds as would be the case during smaller bird poisoning by the hunters. The other birds seen from  my team’s and the eagle’s view included Ruffs, Sandpipers and the Common Greenshank (see photo below; apologies the birds are not so distinct).

 One of our ‘bicycle transporter’ told us he had poisoned a couple of waterbirds for his evening meal with his family the previous evening. From what we showed him later on while teaching him how to use binoculars, he pointed out the birds as either Wood or Green Sandpipers which are migrants. he had used termites and laced them with Furadan. Well, it may not be possible to know exactly which migrants are at risk at the moment but we noted that quite a number of migratory birds were feeding around the rice fields. During data collection there will be acurate documentation of the same. Amongst other migrants, we observed the Blue-Cheeked Bee-eaters, Eurasian Bee-eaters, Spotted Red Shanks, Common Greenshanks, Ruffs,  Common sandpipers, Green Sandpipers and Wood Sandpipers

Biodiversity is faltering the world over as BBC reveals that current trends imply that world governments will fail to meet their agreed targets of curbing biodiversity loss by 2010.

Habitat loss, hunting,pollution and the grande global warming phenomenon have all come down heavily to crush biodiversity to the edge of the limit of survival. These forces are more or less operating in a worldwide scale and should only in a most fair and responsible way be handled by all the states of the world.

But poisoning seems to have a special place especially as far as wiping out birds species is concerned. As I read  National Geographic Channel’s article, Birds in “Big Trouble”Due to Drugs, Fishing,more, I could not stop feeling that poisons must be a nightmare threat capable of wiping out whole species in short time with very minimal room for the reversal of the situation. The article reiterated the catastrophic decimation of the white-rumped asian vultures due to Diclofenac poisoning by up to 99.9% of their original since 1990’s. The whole story can be read in the article Many Asian Vultures Close to Extinction.

Poisoning, which may result from pollution is operating in many regions in the world in remote locations in a most quiet way. I am however concerned by the poisoning of birds particularly in Kenya. While many tend to overlook the killing of birds because they are many, then I must say we are wrong because the kiling is mostly indiscriminate cutting across the flock species as well as the small numbered non-congregating species.

In a walk across the neighbourhood of Bunyala Rice Scheme a while ago,a young man was so determineed to show me a beautiful species that always perched on the cows like Ox-peckers but to his disappointment he could not sight it. I spotted a handful Wattled Starlings on a nearby tree in non-breeding plumage but he vehemently refused that those were not the birds. We went on to ask an elderly man grazing his cattle if he knew and had seen the birds and to his shocking surprise he confided that in a split of time it appeared the birds had vanished. We came to a poisoning site and stumbled on the carcass of a mature male wattled starling in breeding plumage concealed in a grass tuft. This was a poisoning site. From a distance I could see children and young men walking into homes with small hand-washing basins.I could not see any pool wher they may have been washing or drawing water, but why not use buckets to carry the water back to their homes? The young man I was with told me that actually the basins contained the purchased spoils of furadan poisoning which were none other than birds. He said the basins used would actually be much bigger during the peak hunting season during rice planting because the numbers poisoned would also be bigger. It then struck my mind that one conservationist and scout in Mwea Rice Scheme reported that in the 1990’s, poisoned birds quantifiable in pick ups were being ferried away from the rice scheme to unknown markets. What is common to these two sites (Bunyala and Mwea) is that in both cases, it has been reported that Tree Ducks, otherwise Whistling Ducks are almost not to be observed and most probably is because they have suffered heavy mortalities from poisoning.

This was not all. I witnessed one cyclist carrying abour 10 storks in a sack tied on his bicycle rear with  their large bills protruding beyond the sack, which gave them away. We are not just talking of poisoning of a few birds but what I would refer to as birds concentrated in habitats with food abundance thereby drawing as many of their kind as possible, yet the poisoners also give it the best of their poisoning techniques and poisons to catch the most of them-basins, sacks and pick ups of poisoned birds.

As we walked back from the poisoning site, I could not help feeling that the grsslands were more deserted by grassland birds than they should be, given the thickness of the grass density I observed. Deserted or poisoned? Likely, the latter is the justification.

Hi,

Bunyala Rice Scheme is in Busia District, Western Province in Kenya. It is actually located at the border to Siaya District which extends southerly and easterly of Busia district.

Hardship area

The area is a flat expanse with characteristic scrubland and savannah conditions. This vegetation is scanty and poor short grasslands around homesteads whereas the grazing fields are a mixture of tufted grasslands with thick bushes and scrub whereas there is reed vegetation where water floods during the rains mostly resulting from the River Nzoia (a major river that drains into Lake Victoria) bursting its banks rather than from the rains flooding the plains.

A photo showing some of the vegetation typical of Bunyala plains. The tufted grass is typical of its grazing fields(also note the almost bare area used in baiting birds using furadan)

Significance of the rice scheme

These conditions clearly define the area as one with low agricultural productivity. Livestock keeping is still the dominant human activity though the growing human population has shrunk the grazing fields thereby reducing livestock herds significantly. It is however not uncommon to find herds of over 50 heads owned by a family and these herds mix at the communal grazing field into super herds of indigenous animals. Even with such many animals, dairy production is low and milk is for domestic consumption and local sell. It is not wrong to state that these animals are mostly kept for prestige rather than livelihood sustainability.

A boy herding livestock (some of the sheep he is looking after in the mixed herd cut out at the top of photo).

Poaching, also an old practice carried down the generations still goes on in the area though the hunting grounds are now confined to the hills such as Wanga hill where wild game, especially antelopes have retreated following habitat destruction and terrorism by man’s aggression to them for meat mostly to trade in. Laughing hyenas in the distance in the night is a usual thing and claims of leopard visits in the dead of the night is an occasional but known possibility in the area. The fabled ogre in the traditional folklore according to my grandfather may have been the lion. The mighty strength, hairy body with tail, unpleasant odour (typical of beasts) and tendency to strike in the night (may be just as the man-eaters of Tsavo or an old lion with a high affinity for easy to catch human prey. This may have accorded this beast the description that it attacked in the night when in reality the younger, robust individuals may have been hunting normally in the wild) all befit the King of the jungle, the Lion. But now there is no more of the ogre/ (might be) lion.

The wife to the lion; lioness.

Crop farming (maize, millet and sorghum alongside a number of tubers), a revolutionarily acquired practice like in many livestock keeping communities also goes on at painfully minimal levels of zeal, the result of which the harvest is almost always zero. This is aggravated by the irregular and low levels of rainfall in the area, needless to mention the flooding calamity which always strikes and chokes the crops dead while in the field.

The Bunyala Rice Scheme established in the 1960’s in the area therefore brought some relief to the situation. Paddy did just well and everyone in the above activities was soon doubling up as a paddy tender, earning some daily income besides a portion of the rice crop in their holdings to supplement their starch requirements at home.

A section of Bunyala Rice Scheme

Furadan induction

In the early 1980’s Furadan made a debut in Kenya and Bunyala Rice Scheme like many other local rice schemes benefited from this awesome reliable nematicide pesticide. Birds were flocking the rice scheme to gorge on the grain and organisms that thrive in water when the floodgates are opened to supply water to the rice scheme. Grain-eating and wetland birds therefore flocked in such large numbers as any native had ever experience. Man’s desire for bird protein given the dwindling wild herbivore population shifted to the grain-eaters and wetland birds. Catapults by youngsters and herdsmen became common (These are no more since Furadan took over). Hunters quickly snatched the opportunity and shifted their focus to birds from wild game. With a wild instinct on boosting catch bounty they discovered Furadan as an effective bird-killing substance. Man’s bird meat consumption therefore rocketed and has been a normalcy to date.

Significance of Furadan to wild animals and birds

Birds are poisoned in such horrific numbers. Domestic and wild animals including snakes are known to have died from feeding intoxicated birds. Biologically, man is also an animal and from his wild, primitive, feeding behaviour, I must painfully say a wild one. He gets a dose of his intoxication by feeding on the poisoned birds. What may also become disastrous is the status of raptors in the area. Raptors target the smaller birds’ flocks which increases their chances of getting food while conserving their energy for hunting periods during the times when the fields are harvested, but the situation is more worrying even then. Smaller birds flock in smaller numbers and while poisoning progresses on, it means a large proportion of birds in these smaller flocks gets to eat the poison-laced food. In my survey in the area 3 months ago, I saw 7 species of raptors in 5 days, 3 of which are Accipiters, otherwise ‘shortwings’ in the temperate countries and which feed mostly on the smaller grain-eaters. Naturally, the easier, sluggish bird will be caught and predated upon by a bird of prey. These weaker, less sleek subjects to escape are poisoned individuals. Since the raptors go for the soft tissues first, the entrails of their quarry are the first to be eaten, exposing the raptors to high possibility of getting poisoned by eating Furadan contaminated entrails from the just ingested Furadan-laced food. Not so far from Bunyala area is the Lake Victoria where a number of cases have been reported of Furadan poisoning on fish which again the Banyala (People of Bunyala) and their Luo neighbours eat lavishly.

As site of our interest for education and awareness in the Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign at Wildlife Direct, such is the status quo in and around Bunyala Rice Scheme.

It all happens in such fields and waterways that supply water to the Bunyala Rice Scheme.

At this point I am confused which is wrong: poisoning fish or eating poisoned fish? No. I mean which is MORE wrong? For sure both are wrong. I think in short ‘we are poisoning us!’-Human beings and other wildlife!

I had a telephone conversation with my informant in Busia , Kenya last evening who told me everything is going on normally. By this ,he meant birds are being baited as usual. He also went on to say fish poisoning is also on. Well, with the paddy in the fields and water gushing in through the waterways (such as the one shown above) from the River Nzoia, (one of our renowned local rivers) when the watergates are opened, fish also come along. When the watergates are closed, the water stagnates. The chemical is then put in the water and in a matter of a few minutes, fish are seen to float! The species victims of this method include Tilapia species , cat fish and some species of eel. The fishermen then retrieve them from the shallow waterways and are taken for sale. The chemical’s name is nothing close to what we can figure out at the moment.Just like carbofuran is known by the locals in the area as ‘indubuha’ this one is known as ‘gumofwe’. Honestly I do not know what that is and even the spelling may be wrong because I have just reconstructed it based on the way that he pronounced it. With the young man being semi-illiterate, that is the best he could do to get me the name of the chemical. He also said this is also a very toxic substance. In addition, he said some people bathe in the water.I should get down there shortly to get the real name of the chemical and witness the scenario.

It was birds, then now fish. Surely, if this chemical is also toxic to humans, then we are dealing with persons whose bodies are toxic material bags. As if not enough, some of them are going on to ensure the chemical is not only on the inside of their bodies, but also on the outside by bathing in the water with the chemical that kills fish.