Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Pesticides | Date: Jul 13 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Lake Naivasha is amongst the few ‘living’ small akes of the Rift Valley and boasts rich bird and the once rich but now almost gone stock of Tilapia fish; the ‘living’ status is attributed to low salinity of its waters and therefore though this condition precludes the presence of many peoples’ favourite spectacle of Flamingoes from the Lake, other birds, hippos, and water life generally flourish. Like many other ecosystems however, the lake has not been spared from intoxication which is blamed behind the progressive fish declines. I should note here that in one of my surveys on areas with intensive Furadan use, Naivasha’s flower farms turned out markedly as foci in which Furadan was used in gross quantities

Just to highlight on lake Naivasha’s special importance to biodiversity, Lake Naivasha is a stronghold of one of Kenya’s iconic Eagles, the African Fish Eagle that relies on the fish from the lake; a pity the fish are pesticide laden.

An African Fish-Eagle catching a fish

Researchers claim the chemical run-off from farms around the lake, which use its water for irrigation, and the town’s sewage are the main killers of fish. The story (Fish Stocks Dwindle as Pollution Rises) was captured recently in a local newspaper, The Standard.

Kenya’s life is battered left and right with pesticide intoxication; again we have people eating the fouled fish!!!!and the fish are nose diving to their extinction!

Tags: Intoxication, Lake Naivasha, The Standard

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Category: carbofuran | Date: May 08 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Hi readers. During this survey, I am supposed to be gathering data of poisoned birds, counting the different species and their poison-killed individuals. However, many at times I have found myself struggling with resuscitating poisoned birds especially when I should be birding to cool off from the heat of anguishing memories from the bird poisoning scenes. I am not complaining, it is just the frustration that comes with it.

During such moments, I regret that I am not a veterinary doctor. I know drinking water brings relief to intoxicated individuals may be because when taken, it has a diluting effect resulting in the non attainment of the lethal dose level, hence the toxin reaching the system of the bird is not strong enough to kill it. But what happens when the intoxicated birdcannot bowse or drink water? It is not a very good feeling.

Still, I understand that there is an antidote to furadan poisoning, a drug called prallidoxime. May be the same drug in relevant preparation would come in handy to save birds in Bunyala. Vets are best placed as far as the details about the drug, inclusive of administering is concerned.

But the worst woe is that even once rescued, the birds are still fully exposed to furadan as before and you feel your efforts are futile afterall. This is the main reason furadan needs to be taken not just off the shelves of the agrovets, but also from other hands that maintain stockpiles of the poison. I have unconfirmed information that our local irrigation schemes are one of such places. Makes sense birds are still being massacred in large scale in Bunyala.

Four days ago I found a bird in a muddy puddle in Bunyala Rice Scheme. If he had been a water bird, it would have been fine, but the guy was a seedeater; an African Mourning Dove.

When I reached out to him, he seemed to be alert and walking alright but I wondered why he was not taking off.

I finally got hold of him and realized he flapped his wings strongly but could not take to the air. A look at the primaries, which are the outermost wing feathers of flight, I realized they had been glued together by the mud. Aha! a bath and the bird should be fine.

The photo above shows the outer wing feathers stuck together by mud.

Another look however and I realized the bird was injured on the breast(check photo below to the left of the bird’s breast).

Well, the injury was not so deep, so I went on to give the bird a wash especially where the feathers were sticking so hard together on the head and wings.

Some sunning after bathing. My arm seemed his favourite perch.

Time to go! In a few more minutes, the bird hoped to the ground, preened a little before taking to flight (above photo).

Recounting the incidence, I see a relation between furadan and this bird ending up incapacitated in mud. The bird must have been disoriented and came tumbling on a sharp remnant shaft of what used to be the stalk on which rice was growing before harvesting. This explains the injury. naturally, the bird must have struggled to get on its wings again, but overcome by the poison ended up in the muddy ditch. He had to spend the night in the ditch albeit the lingering danger of prowling predatory cats and the storm that somewhat did not come down as forceful the previous night. The fact that the bird might not have ingested enough poioson to attain the lethal dosage of furadan explains the bird’s survival since the toxin may have been cleared by its immunity overnight. Then we stumble on the bird in the morning and he cannot move because his limbs of aerial movement are glued together and may be also because of some pain from the injury, most likely sustained during its fall.

It must have been a tough battle and though the dove survived, out there is the same intoxicant, furadan, and the bird may just meet its end anytime. This is one of the many, and I wonder how many more are out there going through the same ordeal and have no one to attend to them and though they may survive death from furadan, they may not survive death from their numerous predators.

Once birds and other wildlife are intoxicated, death seems to get its grip and maintains it with a fierce tenacity.

Will keep posting for you.

Tags: Bunyala, furadan, Intoxication, poisoning

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 03 2008 | By: Martin Odino

Hi,

Just how extensive is the damage caused by the China melanine-laced milk poisoning?In a recent development, Filipino olympians seemingly have to take tests according to the Phillipine delegation.Probably all olympians should be tested regardless of whether they directly drank the milk or not, including our Kenyan athletes dominated by a tribe renowned for its great passion for milk and milk products. Surely, the intoxication could also have occured as a result of eating sweets, candy or any other foodstuff that was prepared from the contaminated milk.

Panic stricken chines parents with their babies in hospitals

How about the animals particularly the China zoos? It has been reported that two young orangoutans, two adult gorillas and a lion cub have been diagnosed with kidney stones.The pandas are untouched until now because according to an official at the world’s most famous panda reserve, the Wolong Nature Reserve, the baby pandas there are not fed on milk made from formula. This is a relief especially after I had written that there had been no poisoning news on pandas! But who knows what is yet to come up and be revealed especially because milk is used to boost nutrition in the animals in the zoos. That is why the affected include 2 adult gorillas, way grown beyond the suckling age!

Testing a lion cub for kidney stones due to milk posioning .

Tags: China, gorilla, Intoxication, melanine, milk, Orangoutan, panda, poisoning, Wolong Nature Reserve, zoos

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 28 2008 | By: Martin Odino

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.

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

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