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!

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Tags: animals, Bateleur, Kenya, Lion, Mara, Nubian Woodpecker, Red-headed Weaver, Serengeti, wildbeests

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Category: carbofuran | Date: Oct 01 2008 | By: Martin

Melamine-contaminated milk poisoning in China as we now know did not begin with the epidemic of kidney stones in human kids that reached us just a couple of weeks ago. Gorilla babies, orangoutans and a lion cub have followed suit. Many more animals that rely on the mammary gland effusion must have fallen victim as well. I have not heard of the baby Pandas which should be also in China’s zoos, thanks God! Hopefully this is not being kept from the world. Such a trend assumed by the melamine poisoning only evokes fear and abomination!

The real reason that the poisoning reality was suppressed as is highlighted is that so that the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games would not be taken away. China seems to have been wrestling to conceal a violent turbulence of intoxicants for a while. This year’s Olympic games host managed to ‘contain’ the problem of atmospheric pollution that had also threatened its being the games’ host and now the melamine catastrophe that was apparently successfully contained in the secretive bag but which has raptured open letting loose the reality as scores of Kidney Stones diseased humans and wildlife alike. What is worse is that much of the entire world may have already had a taste of the harmful intoxicants.

The temptation to conceal an evil because it will ruin an imminent fortune is high but in most cases turns out more harmful than useful. China has seen a ban on many of its exports by many of its largest importers of its products and even the fortune acquired during the Olympics may cancel out with the loses on imports and the health investment towards the threatened human and wildlife residents.

Statements against our revelations on Furadan wildlife poisoning such as, “when you proclaim before the whole world that Kenya’s wildlife in parks is threatened by Furadan is putting the tourism industry at risk and portraying a bad image of our country” are very common amongst the guys that should be in the fore front in addressing the problem of Furadan poisoning to our wildlife. For some reason, they would rather have the wildlife fetch revenue, despite the ongoing depopulation of the animals in the background. At WildlifeDirect, through the Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force, we are trying to take measures that will stop the country from the possible disgrace of losing our wildlife particularly carnivores and birds, and even humans to Furadan. We are washing our torn, dirty linen while asking for its washing and mending rather than to have the world laugh at us. We are still asking for your support. This month and next month are particularly crucial in the sense that they are likely to be characterised by marked poisoning incidences especially in rice-growing areas, being the start of the planting season. Our financial resources are still low yet we want to begin awareness as a vital bird/wildlife poisoning pace reducing tool during our surveys as we seek a long-term solution to Furadan poisoning. In an earlier post, I put up our 1 year, $20000 budget. I believe through your support we can curb this imminent carnivore/scavenger loss that could lead to banning by our greatest importers of our commodity (tourism) in their market. Yet in this case, the wildlife loss may be irreversible!

Thank you very much those of you who have been supporting this Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign. Please keep reading our blog for the latest poisoning news.

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Tags: China, furadan, gorilla, intoxicant, Lion, melamine, Orangoutan, poison, pollution, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Task Force, Wildlife Direct

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 29 2008 | By: Martin

More and more effects of the China milk poisoning are becoming apparent as more zoo animals get diagnosed with kidney stones. this ordeal seems set to last since it has apparently been a concealed agenda for a while.

Two orangutans (must be what were referred to as Gorrilas), aged one and three, and a lion cub are now reported to be showing signs of kidney stones after being fed the milk powder for more than a year!

The Mail Online edition reports the details in the story Now animals fall victim to China toxic milk scandal as officials admit cover-up during Olympics.

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Tags: China, Lion, Mail Online, milk poisoning, Orangoutan

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Category: Pesticides, carbofuran | Date: Sep 20 2008 | By: Martin

A dog’s death is causing serious concern in Orleans! Though the poisoning ruling is based on clear symptoms by the dog suggesting anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning rather than toxicological analysis, this just shows how sensitive and animal welfare mindful the Orleans community is. We have lost at least 58 big cats amongst many other wildlife in hardly a decade and seemingly nobody is moved!

Recreating our blog’s banner below, poisoning defines the transition from rich, beautiful,living WILDLIFE to scary, dead WILDDEAD! This is where our insensitivity is taking us!

It is impressive that Health Canada has implemented a number of measures to guard the citizens as relates to rodenticide and pesticide use. In a number of areas in Kenya, poisoning of particularly birds is on-going at the ‘poachers’ expense. Kenyan bird meat consumers continue enjoying especially carbofuran-killed wild fowl meat without fear of toxic effects against them. I should fear a chemical that has a reputation of killing anything from a lion to the flies that suck the fluids effusing from the decomposing lion’s carcass. But I would not mind if a trial on the pesticide carbofuran baited bird going back to some years before many of my generation were born did not result in the death of the ‘guinea pigs’ then, who happened to be our parents’ generation. But where is the medical proof that they did or did not suffer from the effects of lethal carbofuran? Who knows if for sure somebody having died from severe diarrhoea did not contract the diarrhoea after a bite of poisoned meat, or the violent seizures that shook a juvenile to his death were not a violent epileptic feat, but the toxic effects of poisoned fowl after giving the child the lion’s share by its parents to boost his growth to a strong adult. Who even cares to tell them of the lethal effects of the chemicals anyway when the appointed bodies sit tight and complacent that the instruction labels are sufficient. What is more is that the instructions are lacking. Yet Kenyans are not a traditionally an English-speaking community. What of the storage and usage security? A frank statement by a user to the manufacturers, suppliers and distributors of pesticides, in essence poisons that “If we’re going to sell this stuff, we should make sure it’s sold to us properly with proper instructions,”

Reading on the Orleans’s poisoning story, one consumer/user acknowledges that relying on pesticide administration by individuals is not good enough. Kenya’s wildlife is at risk where it has sometimes become a ‘pest’ in certain instances such as where lions attack livestock etc. Yet again we have insufficient control of such cases thereby driving the livestock owners to act in anger and frustration in many cases ending up even in unintended wildlife target death.

One animal welfare personnel rules that the best way to avoid accidental poisoning is to avoid using poison altogether. Poisons are not a way to deal with wildlife. Though many fingers are rightly pointing to the manufacturers and pesticide issues custodians who have the herculean role to bring changes to this wildlife poisoning problem, we all have a role to play.

I am all set for a carcass collection at one target site in Kenya where poisoning is to happen quite soon. I know I will get casualties there and it is sad that I cannot stop it. It is sad that I will be getting samples to prove that Furadan is finishing our wildlife. It is painful that the pesticide custodians who should be the ones out there assessing the situation and doing everything right to control their pesticide product which has turned rogue will be awaiting for my findings only to challenge the finding’s credibility. I am worried that this evidence might only attain the status of being ‘enough’ after the only remaining lions are creeping on their bellies with lack of psychomotor coordination, all vultures will have fallen off the skies, while there will be no twilight laughter from the jovial hyenas!

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Tags: Canada, Dog, hyenas, Lion, Orleans, Pest Management Regulatory Agent, poison, vultures

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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.

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Tags: Antelope.Furadan, Birds, Bunyala Rice Scheme, Kenya, Lake Victoria, Lion, raptors, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, Wildlife Direct

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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: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 30 2008 | By: Martin

It is no doubt now that hunting was and still contributes largely to the loss of biodiversity. Many governments have put stringent penalties on hunters of wildlife. In a way it has worked because gone are days when you would meet a hunter wielding a gun, a spear or a bow and arrow unless if they have a licence. But hunting continues only that the new methods are not obvious. A new generation of hunters are now phantoms. They leave no trace afterwards. Further, they kill to destroy rather than to control. People did not go shooting down all the lions in Tsavo because amongst them were man-eaters during the reign of the man-eaters of Tsavo. Nowadays, an attack by a leopard on one’s sheep will most likely prompt the killing of all wild carnivores in sight. They do not kill to eat because the frothing carcases on the poisoning fields are not picked while fresh to eat. Still, if they do, some of the poisoned wander away and are not retrieved. Poisoned birds in Kenya are a good example.

Then who are these people?Hunters or Poisoners?But these are just innovative folks who have taken advantage of what the manufacturer of a compound overlooked. Strychnine has some distasteful bitterness which is why I think it is distasteful to animals with keen sense of taste such as many herbivores. Virtually all birds do not taste and this may explain their vulnerability to strychnine. Carnivores can ignore a degree of distastefulness and unpalatability. I have seen dogs eat soil-ladden placenta from a cow that had just calfed.I wondered if they were not uncomfortable with the grittiness of the soil. This renders them(carnivores) vulnerable to strychnine I believe.Furadan neither smells nor tastes. In my opinion, it is easily consumed and therefore could have even more devastating effects than strychnine. What if FMC made furadan unpalatable. The liquid form did fine for grain-eating birds but not any more with the new generation of hunters who want furadan solution to soak seeds for the birds to eat (for example in Kenya). What if they made it bitter?My mother would mix sugar with quinine to stop me from eating it. It worked. Not that I am a carnivore!Giving a diststeful property would lower chances of it being consumed by many wild animals because this will give them a chance to employ their sense of taste and spare their lives. A better option than banning?Is it possible?Is this a feasible solution to promote Wildlife Direct’s Stop Wildlife Poisoning campaign efforts?

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Tags: Carnivore, furadan, Lion, Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign, strychnine, Tsavo, Wildlife Direct

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