Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 22 2008 | By: Martin

Apologies for my absentism which made it impossible for me to post any stories. I was out in Amboseli National Park which looked all tranquil and safe. Jumbos are big and dominant.

Back in Nairobi, I have received a number of poisoning incidences but are sketches of the real stories. I blame inadequate expertise and the complexity of the killing method(poisoning). Few people if at all any, can suspect poisoning, itself a phantom killing method that can only be positively implicated after complex laboratory procedures.
My supervisor in my Furadan surveys emailed me sometime back that she had heard of a Crowned Eagle killed through Furadan poisoning on 13/10/2008. Her assisitant had collected it at their owl reserch centre in rural central Kenya in Nyeri district. Her efforts to get in touch with the asistant were futile therefore it was not possible for her to get the carcass for testing and photographs for the post. Nonetheless, this is not the first time to get information on poisoning by Furadan from the area. A Mackinder’s Eagle Owl died from the same in the area after eating dying mousebirds that were poisoned with Furadan by farmers near Mweiga, Nyeri District. Though I would challenge that mousebirds are too small a prey for the Crowned Eagle, in some way the chemical may have gotten to be ingested by the raptor.
I also got an update on 14/10/2008 of fish poisoning using thiodan or endosulfan in Tanzania. 6 galons of the chemical were poured into River Kilombero about 13 kms from the Udzungwa Mountain National Park and villagers in the neighbourhood cautioned against using the water for domestic purposes by the fishermen. Supposedly, scores of schools of fish floated to their death only to be collected downstream by the fishermen. A commendable job I would say to warn the locals not to use the contaminated water, but all that is annulled when it is still the fishermen that have contaminated the water. Still, it is the human race that eats the indiscriminately harvested fish. Just a silly mental justification captured in the old adage,’Out of sight, out of mind’. The fishermen cannot bear the sight of the villagers suffering under their noses, but if anyone else suffers downstream from using the water or from eating the intoxicated fish carcases, it is none of their business.
Yesterday I talked to a friend, Evans, who has been studying the effects of bush meat trade on wildlife, now compiling his reports. As we settled down on discussing our campaigns,their similarities emerged, myself against poisoning, himself aginst snares in particular. In either case, these techniques are indiscreminate or to put it plainly, they are wasteful. A pastoralist using furadan to bait the lion that attacked and ate one of his cattle will in the process not even kill the culprit lion which is compeled by its full stomach to retire to a bush and sleep. This lion may even go for two days without eating. The victims of the infuriated pastoralist’s poisoning therefore end up being feeble innocent carnivores and scavengers that will come to eat of the left overs of the lion’s kill. Evans says the snares also target every other beast, intended or unintended. Idealy, the snares are meant for wild herbivores but this is not always the case. A sad case, he narrated was when a wire snare intended for a wild ungulate caught a hyena by the neck, cutting through its oesophagus. While the poor animal managed to cut herself lose, her wish to be a survivor of bush meat snares never came true. Evans states how he witnessed her at a zebra carcass trying to eat but the food came out through the gush in the neck! The hyena eventually died after a tough struggle of excruciating pain. I can feel the pain as I write. In the case of the wildbeests, his study in the Mara revealed a decline in wildebeest numbers from 160,000 to just about 40,000 at the moment. This has occured in just a few decades in our time! Clearly, the marveled at wonder of the world might just not survive as long as the others given the status quo of merciless wildlife killings.I think in every respect humanity has turned beastly to wildlife.

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Tags: Amboseli National Park, Crowned Eagle, furadan, hyena, Kenya, Mackinder's Eagle Owl, Poiosning, Tanzania, Thiodan, Udzungwa Mountains National Reserve

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Category: carbofuran | Date: Aug 13 2008 | By: Martin

As I took a random look at one of our local dailies today, the Standard newspaper, I was struck by the headline Tourists troop to Mara for ‘The Seventh Wonder’. With the memories of my two weeks in the Mara during my last visit there just two weeks ago still fresh, I could not help read the write up to see what people will decipher of it.

What I think is that to just a reader, it will look an interesting, tourist inviting piece;  a tourist who has never seen this Serengeti-Mara migration,so called 7th wonder may be tempted to check to see if there is still chance to make it to the Mara given the migration happens in intermittent waves for much of July into August year in year out; still, the Kenyan government’s adrenaline levels must be at utmost peak levels with its pulse of excitement driving it to hysterical frenzy since econoomic recovery seems imminent especially after the many misfortunes that have befallen our country dealing it repeated blows to our economic success. I feel the urge in the government, ‘as a father’, to  give a pat on the back to its child organ, the ministry of tourism and utter sell!sell!sell! Indeed the close to 550,000 tourists that have visited the area in the last 3 years is a good deal but it can be better given the harsh economic times we are trudging through.

Fine, we are the gifted custodians of the 7th wonder of the world. Conservationists must feel it is time to take time out when wildlife abundance is hailed for the moment in the Mara; while those of us locked in the unending nightmare of wildlife poisoning could also do the same. But can we? the memories of the lion (and hippo) poisoning linger fresh as these only happened months ago in the area. Kipchumba Kemei, the publisher of the article must happily and rightly proclaim (in normal circunstances) ” Their presence has increased the concentration  of crocodiles, lions and hyenas along the river bank….” , may be as an animal concentration watch point  to the tourists?or that the animals are bountiful?

Looking at the list of the animals that congregate on the Sand and Mara rivers during the Gnu/Zebra migration,-crocodiles, lions, hyens (and the migrating animals themselves)- all are known and reported to have been killed by Carbofuran (Furadan) in Kenya. So what the tourists are enjoying seeing to the stop wildlife team is the sample of animals that carbofuran will effectively take down. Well, this is what I also wish the importers, distributos and licencers of carbofuran in Kenya are reading between the lines. Seventh wonder of the world my foot! just brings memories of a congregation of animals amassed for carbofuran to bring down!

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Tags: carbofuran, Crocodile, Gnu, hyena, Kenya, Lion, Mara, Serenget-Mara migration, the Standard newspaper, Zebra

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Category: carbofuran | Date: Jul 17 2008 | By: Martin

Hi. It is a bright thursday 17/07/2008 afternoon unlike the many gloomy, cloudy afternoons that have been since last month. I am perched on my seat looking across a broad window overlooking one of Nairobi’s upper middle class surburbs, otherwise called Hurlingham. As I contemplate where to begin, a Black Kite flies by in my view, twisting and turning its tail, a diagnostic manouvre of the fork-tailed raptor. I then remember the nesting Peregrine Falcon I saw this morning on a high neighbouring building just astride from where Willife Direct’s offices are situated. It then hits me that these guys are safe in town! A Marabou Stork is gliding past as I type.

Alas! the Marabou Storks only two decades ago were birds of the wild. They roamed and scavenged of the carcases in the savannah expanse. Well they still do but most of them have now moved into town. If you happen to be in Nairobi City, and especially as you get into town from our local major airport, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, you will pass by a section of town called Nyayo Stadium(known from the respective stadium) and witness a spectacle of big nests on Acacia trees. This is the largest nesting site of the urbanized storks in Nairobi. The birds have muted excreta on the tarmac, looking smudged after zooming automobiles splash the fresh, pasty substance. The walls of the surrounding buildings are also stained with white cascading trails of the same. Though not entirely free from human persecution, especially from the street urchins who may pick up the weakend old or sick individuals and subject them to teasing and physical torture, the birds are generally comfortable and safe at the judgement of any onlooker. Still, the people around Nyayo stadium seem to have learnt to tolerate the birds and will hardly notice them. My whole point is that the giant birds are safer compared to what is befalling their scavenging mates-the vultures-in the wild.

The Marabou Storks are scavengers and will be seen scavenging alongside vultures and hyenas. Of all the local cases reported of vultures poisoned by carbofuran, I cannot pin-point one that documented Marabou Storks as well, yet these scavenge together in the wild. But I think their ‘humility’ has spared them from the ill fate of this calamity. The Marabous will post sentry as the stronger eagles, vultures and hyenas tussle over the meal of carcass. May be by the time they get the morsel of the whole the carbofuran-laced layer of the carcass is already cleared off by the stronger birds and hyenas. Well, may be this tough competition is one of the factors that led to the coming into town by these giant storks. Nonetheless, I feel though an ambitious move, partly the birrds were saved from the ongoing massacre of their colleagues-vultures-by the killer carbofuran.

Many rate this stork as the ugliest scene of the birds, but the bird has a reputation for being a cleaner of the environment. It will eat decomposing carcasses and most disposables that would be unpalatable even to wild dogs. But their settlement in town does not mean they have moved to absolute safety.Since the birds will be seen to forage in large numbers at dumping sites, at sewage pond ‘wetlands’ and any other filthy sites, still there is menace that the birds could get poisoned by industrial poisons or toxins if these are discharged at their foraging sites. For now, they are safer from carbofuran poisoning than they would be if they were all out in the savannah.

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Tags: Black Kite, carbofuran, eagle, hyena, Marabou Stork, Peregrine Falcon, Wildlife Direct

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