Vignettes of Wildlife Killing
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.
Tags: Amboseli National Park, Crowned Eagle, furadan, hyena, Kenya, Mackinder's Eagle Owl, Poiosning, Tanzania, Thiodan, Udzungwa Mountains National Reserve
About our animals
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 09 2008 | By: Martin
Hi,
Today’s post will in a simple way acknowledge animals!
In the African culture, bounty of species is a blessing. I pluralize species in the sense that the more the heads of cattle and variety of livestock; the more the wives and offspring tagged to a man’s name; the greater the bounty of crop yield from a man’s farm; amongst many other sorts of bountiful assortments especially alive, implying plants and animals, the more a man was regarded blessed by the sacred forces. I believe for sure that congregations of wildlife were and are still acknowledged by a majority of our people. I have picked on a few of the animals photograph on one of my safari’s in Kenya. in many respects, you will realize they are so similar to humans or else what we thought we understand of them, in many cases we get it all wrong. And now on to the animals:
A number of animals migrate, traversing territories of land,water and air for better seasonal conditions. Winter must be settling in temperate lands and we in the tropics are expecting human visitors from those lands. But coming along will be non-human visitors about the same time and for more or less the same physiological reasons. I am talking about migrating birds.Below is a photograph of Wildbeests that cross the Mara-Serengeti expanse every year.
The NubianWoodpecker below ‘knock knocks’ on woody stems. In many occasions, big enough burrows are seen about where the birds will be seen to knock hard. Well, the large holes are the result of prolonged enlargement and sometimes the woodpeckers even have had no role in their enlargement. Usually in the normal feeding of the bird, it will tap hard on the trunk to disrupt the insects underneath which then come to the surface and the bird eats them. The harder the knock, the greater the disruption and the more the emergent insects to satisfy the woodpecker.
Now, Eagles have a characteristic medium or long prominent tail which justifies their hunting nature and facilitates manouverability while hunting a dodging prey. But more important their tails enable them to balance their bodies. The eagle below is a young Bateleur. Other than changing to darker plumage with red on back,tail,face and feet, the proportions will remain more or less the same. The long wings exceeding the tail tip are the center of interest here. This bird is a powerful glider but seems to struggle to balance, more or less as if staggering, the explanation is in the short tail. It is also more of a scavenger rather than a hunter. Again, the short tail limits its hunting proficiency.
The Red-headed Weaver defies the conventional Yellow colouration of our weaver but a weaver nonetheless by virtue that it ‘weaves’ its nest.
I did not know that lionesses have four teats. May be this is new to you too.
The natural beauty above is worth carrying of heavy photography gadgets like the one below.
But if we should lose them, then we will find ourselves getting photos of the un-natural beauty as below. This bird is not an eagle!
Tags: animals, Bateleur, Kenya, Lion, Mara, Nubian Woodpecker, Red-headed Weaver, Serengeti, wildbeests
A poisons’ (especially Furadan’s) weekend!
Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Oct 05 2008 | By: Martin
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
Apologies if this post’s heading is troubling; I could not find any better title. I also wish to humbly inform my dear readers that I must leave certain organization’s names out so that this does not turn personal. I was not comfortable when somebody that matters in one pesticide organization told me, ‘welcome! I have heard about you and I am glad I have seen you’.
I went through a turbulent end of the week! I literally spent the Friday and Saturday struggling in my limited ways together with one remarkable conservationist heading the Kenyan office of a renowned international conservation organization, trying to get the details of recent Furadan poisoning of fish in Tanzania. I am still optimistic that I will get some details and hopefully, photos sent my way across the border (from Tanzania) of the poisoning ordeal. I should then surely avail the story on the stopwildlifepoisoning blog. At the moment, I only know that 6 gallons of liquid Furadan were poured in Kilombero River to kill fish with the fishermen warning the villagers not to use the river water for domestic purposes. This happened sometime last week.
I spent the weekend combing papers and articles on carbofuran especially Furadan 5G, the grossly alleged threat to Kenya’s wildlife. I must get certain facts right to be able to tackle the various troubling facets that challenge this stop wildlife poisoning campaign, in particular the campaign against Furadan pesticide as the poison. These have been manifested in my interactions especially with the people dealing with pesticides before it gets to the users.
It is now apparent that the discussion about Furadan is not a discussion but a sad war. It has become tough for me to get any relevant information from the pesticides fellows. It starts with word games where we have been repeatedly warned that we should talk of Furadan poisoning and not Carbofuran poisoning despite the active ingredient being carbofuran. I was recently advised for my knowledge that carbofuran is not sent nor sold in Kenya, but as far as I know, it is sold and sent to Kenya in the Furadan preparation. Nonetheless, I am going to stick to Furadan poisoning to save myself from the inconvenience of being interrupted and getting confused from the flow of my conversation that I should not mention carbofuran poisoning but Furadan poisoning. That is not the end of the war, I am disappointed when I am directed to a website where I cannot find information especially concerning a follow up on a Furadan alleged case of poisoning (Mara lion poisoning). Either the information is not there absolutely, or it is hidden behind the locks of a registration fee that is required for anyone to have full success of the information on the website. I wonder why positive counter allegation evidence to an issue that sparked terror and implicated a great need to mend holes in the pesticide regulation /manufacture fraternity would be kept hidden from the public. Many questions therefore arise as to the credibility of the findings of the follow up which was summarised as ‘there was no connection between the dead animals and carbofuran’ in the Mara.
I have also been trying to find out the carbofuran products that may have been or are still of concern in other places in the world in trying to establish if I can link it up to the Kenyan scenario. Based on a report in late 1990’s-crop-profile-of-rice-in-california.pdf- I stumbled on a profile description of Furadan 5G, the exact carbofuran product that may cost Kenya its wildlife and probably aggravate the neurotic disorders of its citizens. Various aspects of Furadan 5G are highlighted including its safety. According to the report, carbofuran was on the Food Quality Protection Act list 1 of insecticides scheduled to have their tolerances reassessed by August 1999. As a carbamate, the report revealed that the reassessment of carbofuran may result in the elimination of some uses. The product seems to have been praised for its minimal effects on non-target arthropods and fish. This is not what we are experiencing in Kenya, or are we dealing with a compound pseudo-labelled Furadan 5G when the reality is that it is a higher concentrate carbofuran product? Our Furadan 5G product even has one of the hazard labels cautioning on harm on fish. It does not make sense when it is generally stated in a communication to me that Furadan 5G is generally less toxic than the active ingredient carbofuran by 20-40 times. Fish were poisoned last week in Tanzania and birds, also fish are still being poisoned in Kenya using Furadan 5G. These have ended up and will continue ending up in East African peoples’ digestive systems, the actual effects on their health of which need the medical personnel to unveil.
I also gathered from an International POPs Elimination Project report of 2005– that spelt doom due to the hazardous state attributed to many chemical stockpiles including poor storage of which Desert Locust Control (DLCO) East Africa was sited. DLCO particularly struck me because it was reported that they had switched from mostly organchlorines which were banned due to persistence, environmental effects and bioconcentration in fatty tissues, but switched to amongst others carbamates carbaryl and propoxur. These are less hazardous to the environment but more acutely hazardous to human and animal health. When these poisons are injected into the air, they will not only just bring down the insects (starting with locusts) but also birds (directly or indirectly) and what of the humans that get in contact with the poisons or even those that might eat the birds killed in the exercise?
The poisoning saga in Kenya is terrifying, especially when the true knowledge of the deadly implications of the pesticides being used to kill vermin and wild animals is sat on squarely by the relevant authorities so that for some reason the public does not get to it. This looks bad especially when the whole situation appears to take full advantage of public ignorance and employing otherwise deadly chemicals that qualify to be termed poisonous. Sometimes, sharing the knowledge on these chemicals is worthwhile and may enhance livelihood security.
Tags: carbamates, furadan, Kenya, Kilombero, Pesticides, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, Tanzania, Wildlife
The secrecy in wildlife poisoning
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 17 2008 | By: Martin
Yesterday BBC reported on reject on calls for ban on bush meat in central Africa. Frances Seymour, director general of CIFOR - the Centre for International Forestry Research-speaking to the BBC amongst other things warned that “Criminalising the whole issue of bushmeat simply drives it underground.”. He may just have been right especially when I look at the secrecy that surrounds poisoning of wildlife in Kenya.
Killing wildlife in defence against attack on your property/livestock is apparently lawful in Kenya though it is always preferred that you call the local wildlife authority, the Kenya Wildlife Service to come capture the rogue carnivore as it turns out in most cases to come gun down or cage trap the intruder.
This is by no means a justification for wild poisoning of the carnivores and consequently vultures, hyenas and other canids. I was looking at the notes I made on the questionnaires to the bird poachers in Busia and could not stop trying to get a link to the secrecy that characterises Kenyan hunting (partly through poisoning) and Central Africa’s. in trying to understand the poisoning I have modelled the case of poisoning of carnivore and scavengers which is almost wholly not meant for meat trade or other animal parts for trade based on a by the way question that I asked some bird poachers in Busia on what they would do if against their odds they were forced to quit poaching (birds) especially using poison. A few realistic ones said they would have to fall back on what everybody else was doing to sustain their livelihoods. In my reasoning, I cannot stop thinking that the poachers especially in and around the National Parks and Reserves that survived the harsh enforcement against poachers in the late 80’s, early 90’s and reformed for better to be just like their non-poaching native colleagues, turned to livestock keeping and crop farming. While poaching was ‘banned’, fear caught up with everyone which indeed did our country a lot of good by boosting tourism through securing wildlife. But the wildlife conflicts did not end as well as human population growth applying more and more pressure especially on animal reserves thereby prompting the predators to roam to the proximities of man’s holdings to satiate their hunger .And so the situation of wildlife poisoning started appearing ‘boldly’ in the 90’s with easier detections in non-park and reserve regions like western Kenya where spread out birds for purchase for domestic meat consumption obviously betrayed poisoning as a poaching technique. This averted the focus from the reserves and parks where a poisoned animal is highly likely to be cleared out by the alert scavengers. Soon however, scores of vultures would die and this being irregular, it was later to be revealed by autopsy results that they were poisoned. In brief I suppose secrecy embodied in poisoning evolved from the well-meant enforcement against wildlife poaching.
I cannot help pondering if this could be a solution to wildlife poisoning other than for carbofuran which honestly is almost a threat to everything living. I mean, If I must kill wildlife that is a threat to me and what is mine, I should do it but not use a poison which means a policy review to include harsh preconditions such as this kind of killing will only be legal if my physical security is at its best and meets another precondition that outlines how you should reinforce your physical security to accord it secure.
Just thinking aloud so as to involve you. What do you think?
Tags: BBC, Carnivores, Central Africa, CIFOR, Kenya, National Parks, National Reserves, poachers, scavengers, wildlife poisoning
supervision lacking
Category: Pesticides | Date: Sep 16 2008 | By: Martin
Hi. Apologies for not posting on the blog for a while. I just emerged from a pesticides workshop in which notably and commendable were farmers; thanks to the organizers of the workshop.
What emerged of animal poisoning from this workshop from the farmers was their commendable knowledge on pesticides. They all seemed to acknowledge the fact that pesticides are poisonous afterall. They were frank enough to disclose that abuse was going on and in a number of cases it turned out disastrous. Incidences such as use of a pesticide called Karate to spray animals against external parasites and consequent literal fall off of the skin; use of an acaricide to disinfect the wounds of a de-horned cow resulting in death of the cow among others were revealed. The bottom line to this however is the fact that such ideologies would be passed from one farmer to another without and in most cases the source of the information was not of expertise standard. Being a very poor farmer (in terms of knowledge) myself, I have lived outside the era when there were Agricultural Extension Services. Many of our generation hoover in the same protracted ignorance since from the look of things, the responsible government department just froze that service. We are therefore living in an era where an extension officer is almost out of reach and in case of an emergency, an equally ignorant peer’s advice is much welcome much as you know you are doing it on trial and error basis, but hopes are held high that your advisor’s perspective will work alright. The farmers in the workshop however showed great surprise at the details of intoxication and vowed to be ambassadors of enlightment.
Early in the year, I also held a meeting with a group of pastoralists from a part of North Eastern and Rift Valley,Kenya at Isiolo and Maralal respectively. But this was neither a workshop nor an informed meeting to them.It was apparent that they did not deal closely with an extension officer. While I was mistaken as one at first, these people went on to shower me with predator problems making it clear that if I was interested in bettering their livestock then that would come later because to begin with, they needed to save their livestock if at all they were to have anything to improve on. At the backyard of this area is the Samburu National Reserve. The livestock keepers enumerated lions, hyenas and leopard as the troublesome culprits stressing that livestock killings were a daily occurence!I asked them how they countered this problem. Little did I know that their trust would fade away fast. After consultation in the local dialect of which I do not have any vocabulary, one of them stated that they hunted them down but they implicated locals from a neighbouring division. When I asked them if they knew about carbofuran they played absolute ignorant. They however shifted to describing strychnine since it seemed not my interest. But the Samburu surrounding has been renowned for lion and vulture mortalies following carnivore-killed prey laced with carbofuran with recent mortalities having been reported this year. After the workshop, I have contemplated this encounter with the pastoralists in Isiolo and Maralal. Critically looking at things, I believe lack of supervision has in part contributed to the pastoralists turning to the lethal pesticides hoping to avert the situation.
What should be done:
- I feel there is need to hold a workshop with a sampled small number of the pastoralists from the various poisoning areas.
- If possible, they should be brought to Nairobi or any non-rural set up. Detaching them from their areas where emotions and pressure from other locals not to easen on the losses they have encountered on their livestock can make them relax just like the farmers in the workshop above and then let them share the reality while educating them more about the detriments of the pesticides being used in poisoning of the cats and scavengers.
- This way we can try form an awareness ‘extension service’ now that the relevant departments don’t seem to be alarmed just as we are at Wildlife Direct and the entire wildlife conservation fraternity
This can be done with your continued support. Kindly keep supporting us and reading the blog. I am speculating-and God forbid- that with intensifying dry conditions for much of the remaining part of the year the seizefire of poisoning may be lifted in some areas,but we will let you know how we will in our utmost possible efforts deal with the situations.
Tags: animal poisoning, Isiolo, Kenya, Maralal, North Eastern, Pesticides, Rift Valley, Samburu
Bunyala Rice Scheme
Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Sep 07 2008 | By: Martin
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.
Tags: Antelope.Furadan, Birds, Bunyala Rice Scheme, Kenya, Lake Victoria, Lion, raptors, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, Wildlife Direct
Call for your support
Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Sep 06 2008 | By: Martin
Hi all,
This year (2008) began with a vexing outrage of poisoning incidences in Kenya, leading to the Wildlife Poisoning meeting organized by Wildlife Direct at the end of April, 2008. The landmark outcome of the meeting was the formation of a Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force.
The Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force having met for the first time last month agreed on a number of issues that are slowly gaining momentum of implimenntation. Generally, it emerged from our Task Force meeting and from the responses (from relevant stakeholders including government departments) to our complains (including Dr. Richard Leakey’s call for ban of carbofuran) about carbofuran’s significance in Kenya’s wildlife mortality that there is need for intensive information data collection(already significantly done) and toxicological analytical proof results implicating carbofuran.
The Task Force team is constituted of a multi-conservation and regulation organizations member merger whose contribution to the course of the stop wildlife poisoning campaign is highly time-restricted. Therefore, while their expertise is crucial, it can only be applicable in an intermittent manner. We therefore agreed that we would employ the services of students to collect data and animal carcass samples known/suspeccted to have died from poisoning under supervision by myself with technical consultation and advice from the Task Force who will also surely be out there whenever they can to ensure satisfactory outcome of our poisoning data gathering that will give stronger back up evidence for Carbofuran poisoning in Kenya. The same will also apply for the legal issues as concerns pesticides regulation on distribution and use. In summary, please see the table, anti-wildlife-poisoning-campaign-budget.pdf.
Your contributions are most welcome. Please kindly support us in the Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign.
Thanks for reading our blog and please keep checking it out.
Tags: , carbofuran, Dr. Richard Leakey, Kenya, poisoning, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force, Wildlife Direct
Pesticide regulation mechanisms in Kenya
Category: Pesticides | Date: Sep 03 2008 | By: Martin
While we struggle at Wildlife Direct to confront the regulation on hazardous pesticides such as furadan, the regulators have always been sleek to remind us that even furadan is rightly regulated and legitimate. That may be so, but the harsh reality is that in some circumstances, the effectiveness of the regulatory mechanisms stands to be questioned. Read an independent perspective in the Africa News Service story, Kenya lacks pesticides regulatory mechanisms.
Tags: Africa News Service, Kenya, Pesticides, Wildlife Direct
….poison to safeguard crops
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 30 2008 | By: Martin
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
Toxic Chemicals are all around and all round
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 24 2008 | By: Martin
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.
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
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