Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Jul 30 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers, the summary on the post 4 points on carbofuran poisoning in humans revealed intentional poisoning in humans as the mode by which human mortalities occured. So is the case for lion poisoning and likewise bird poisoning. But EPA spells that even proper use of the pesticide is harmful especially to children, hence the ongoing process to ban it from the USA “in a move to protect people, especially children, from dietary risk.”

The lab analysts that gave me the facts in the post, 4 points on carbofuran poisoning in humans did not understand why the people feeding on Furadan-poisoned birds in Bunyala (and Mwea) region were not dying. First and foremost, there has been no medical research on the effects of the poison on the people in the areas. Data on human poisoning let alone precision of actual responsible poison is retreavable from the poorly staffed and equiped health centres in the area. We therefore concluded that most likely the deaths occur but are never reported.

But locals and the 2 doctors who also own pharmacies and whom I got to talk to in Bunyala agree there are a couple of mortality cases that occur in the area are certainly poisoning cases. When asked which poison they thought was responsible, they gave a number but named Furadan first; asked what they thought the most common and probable poison used to kill the humans was, they picked on Furadan. Both doctors admit they have no proper records where they have recorded the poisoning cases. For another reason, locals are lacking in liquid cash, though their livestock assets are modest and apparently they save these for last though this is not well illustrated given the high rate of illiteracy and long-illness deaths. The locals therefore will tend to self-treat or strain their immunities to fight without medicinal back up. In such cases, people will try giving the poisoned fellow milk at best otherwise they pass on without medical intervention. Even in death, post-mortems are never carried out let alone being known. The berieved then cling onto the corpse of their beloved one for fear of superstitious practices being performed on their own in case the body has to be taken to hospital for medical examination in which case the dead would remain to haunt them. And so, if Furadan was the cause of death the evidence goes with the dead to the grave.

At the lab, one analyst tried explaining the phenomenon of ‘no observable’ intoxication in humans in Bunyala. He explained that the poison once ingested by a bird goes to the brain before going elsewhere in the body. I wish I understood that but I had to be contented with the path of poison travel as first to the brain. Of course the alimentary canal is tainted with the poison as well. Consumers of the poisoned birds normally get rid of the head, legs and entrails therefore lower the quantity that will be consumed. Nonetheless, the expert said that in this poison’s killing path, the poison does spread. Further, during cooking, the poison is concentrated citing that they use heat to concentrate Furadan in samples to be analysed in the lab for carbofuran. The lttle Furadan in the bird’s meat is therfore consumed after being concentrated even though it may not attain the lethal amount!

Poisoned pigeon in Bunyala: the bird had been picked by 3 boys having died out of the poacher’s poisoning range. Poison is concentrated in the brain and gut.

In the post, Furadan Everywhere, I tried to explain how the Furadan used in Bunyala gets ‘everywhere’ inclusive of domestic water sources. In EPA’s Tolerance Revocation, “EPA completed action to revoke existing carbofuran tolerances (residue limits in food) due to unacceptable dietary risks, especially to children, from consuming a combination of food and water with carbofuran residues.” I think people in Bunyala are consuming this combination. More is that a majority are youngsters (children) with rice being one of the immediate post-weaning foodstuffs that they have to get used to eating.

Kids giving mummy a helping hand with the rice; will they grow to be strong?will they survive? There might just be Furadan residues in the rice that cou;d cause intoxication.

Rice cultivation is inseparable from Furadan use; it is the media by which Furadan found its way to Bunyala. The supply was so gross that the Furadan supplied at planting time from the time the seedlings are developing in the seedbeds remains to be used in vegetable shambas (gardens), poisoning birds and for other crude uses suh as being put on wounds to keep off flies. Those who have tried the latter say the flies drop dead.And it is also the efficient way to commit suicide or kill another person(s) who you are not in very good terms with! As far as rice production is concerned, the rice grown in the fields is as good as a cash crop only not sold by the farmers: the irrigation board claims its lion’s share for the planting inputs that were provided to the farmers once the rice matures and is harvested. Some however remains with the farmers who make it almost an all-meals constituent. In the morning it is taken with tea, at lunch time it may be taken with legumes, mostly beans and in the evening with poisoned bird stew or skipped to be eaten the next day at the frequency of at least 2 meals a day. But EPA says that Furadan even when used as a nematicide correctly in such a manner as rice production, still its residues will remain in the food. So the Banyalas and Luos in satiating their hunger are lodging an intoxicant in their bodies with those unable to survive passing on quietly.

It is a long string of deaths due to Furadan: animal bait(snails, small fish, grasshoppers, locusts,), birds and humans. Elsewhere our majestic big cats are at its mercy.

Please keep reading.

Technorati : , Bunyala, EPA, Furadan, Mwea, poison

Tags: Bunyala, EPA, furadan, Mwea, poison

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 08 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers, we are in the coldest month in Kenya, July; of course not as cold as the temperate lands where it gets to single digits with a non digit negative symbol to the left but even with the maintenance of our tropical double temperature digits in a majority of places, it is in deed cold by our stands. However, even with the dipping temperatures, not all places are enjoying the beauty of change from scorching heat to coolness that for the tropical inhabitants prompts wearing of cold-meant, winter jackets, of course many are brought in the country from Four seasons experincing temperate lands and sold to Kenyans as second hand clad.

Well, I have made it a mandatory routine as a field worker to listen to weather forecasting as broadcasted by local radio stations in the mornings prior to getting out in the field. This suppliments my wonderful judgement but sometimes either gets me drenched in a downpour or dehydrated in the solar’s heat. My assistant Joseph is a blessing in this case since his predictions are almost always perfect. Nonetheless, it appears temperatures are only cool in Nairobi and in the highlands only which average 20 to 24 degrees centigrade, elsewhere it is the routine tropical heat: Mwea would as hot as 30 degrees centigrades by 0900hrs; Ahero and Kisumu has you wearing a T-shirt only by about the same time while in Bunyala you wake up feeling hot! may be land breeze overnight from the nearby Lake Victoria but even then the breeze does not seem to warm up the Bunyala landmass but virtually heats it up to uncomfortable post 30 degrees centigrades temperatures, and we say this is July!

The Bunyala early sunrise that elevates the temperatures further from early hours

So as I look at the birds and pity their struggle by luck to escape poisoning by the day. An even keener look and you realise you are looking at poor creatures wrestling beyond just poisoning: global warming? not making things any better!

In Ahero, I had difficulties looking at birds which I felt I knew their identity but for some reason something was odd about them that impeded my iddentifiication. Aha! I realized it was their colouration. A number of brightly coloured species feathers’ are so worn out, compounded furher by the freely burning su’s UV rays that have bleached their feathers to an unrecognizable colour unassociated with the species. Check out the bird below. I forwarded it to a number of people and even a veteran ornithologist friend was puzzled and ended up with a way off guess!

The puzzle bird! Bleached to cream where he should be red

Another bleached individual and will be like the one above in a matter of time

Well this is the normal colour of its colleague in comparably fresher plumage. A Southern Red Bishop.

Look at these individuals. They are gaping their beaks not in calling out but to hyperventilate and boost their heat loss from the smoother membranes in their mouths down their gullets to the hotter inside of their bodies.

Gaping Long-toed Plovers

Going to the species that I described as ‘new’ in Bunyala-the Long-tailed Nightjar- yet vulnerable to the expanding Bunyala Rice Scheme and possible increase in Furadan use in the post Furadan Availability and Expansion of Rice Growing Area; A Major Conservation Threat in Bunyala the bird may have just come this far from its area of known occurence in North Western Kenya. The birds southerly movements are known not to get beyond the southern end of Lake Turkana. North Western Kenya is predominantly arid but with this intense heat and dry conditions, may be its habitat conditions now rhyme (or have become more severe) with the conditions in Bunyala which is just about exactly the northern shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya. It just means Bunyala has become drier and hotter!Yes, it must be global warming!

The Long-tailed Nightjar. Check it out keenly because the bird is camouflaged perfectly in the underbush shade. The head is to the left of the photo, the beak partly obscured by the a blade of grass while the long tail extends into the photo towards the right.

Even I have to sit down sometimes as early as 0800hrs to regain control given the dizzying effect of the heat. It is not yet 0900 hours but my light changing spectacles are dark from the bright, heat radiating sun this early!

And so it is a tough struggle and with all this, a poacher armed to the teeth with Furadan lurks in some nook only to pop up and claim these poor creatures lives.

Keep reading please.

Tags: Ahero, Bunyala, Kenya, Mwea

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 24 2008 | By: Martin Odino

HI. I am so sorry for being ‘off’. I hooked a hike. I am in Sopa Lodge in Samburu National Reserve for the night as I type. See the photo below. Sorry for the poor quality: Power was running low and the photo was taken in the night at around 22.15hrs. yet the lighting conditions of my simple room were not the best. The place has neither cell phone nor internet connection but I will post this out tomorrow once I am somewhere there is accessibility to network within the park.

A friend invited me on a bird survey/guiding tour. I thought it worthwhile to accompany him because I noticed his circuit included places where wildlife poisoning is known to occur. While the circuit begins from Nairobi, it covers areas of Thika town outskirts, Mwea, Samburu, Baringo, Kakamega, Kisumu Masai Mara and then back to Nairobi. I have been to some of these places and I thought it wise to get to observe for poisoning and interview one or two people.

Having come through Mwea Rice Scheme, I was able to talk to two people. The first directed me to a second party who i made a ‘false’ appointment with to get poisoned ducks from early next month. We even exchanged contacts and he is eagerly waiting for the time to reach and I will be his guest. He told me he does not poison birds himself but there are specialists who poison the birds using Furadan and when the time came he would link me up with them. It is a pity that poisoning is shielded so that it goes on behind the scenes. This makes detection very hard and therefore this situation may run out of hand if it does not receive immediate attention. Here I was standing right in the face of poisoning while all seemed so well when in fact it is otherwise. In addition he told me the National Irrigation Board carries out aerial sprays against vermin birds when the crop is maturing and almost ready for harvest. Unfortunately, their exercise is indiscriminate. He told me that this year, the exercise will be on about November. The young man further pointed out that these poisonings are executed mostly at roosting sites and birds die en masse. He said that nobody collects the birds, more so smaller species. Large species collected, mostly ducks are taken for consumption. He mentioned three species that he knew were falling victim of aerial sprays: Egrets, Herons and Ducks. At the time I joined my friend and he expressed disappointment that he had not been able to locate one species known to occur here amongst its other known few, restricted ranges. Honestly I could not help wondering quietly if the poisonings were not contributing to the scarcity of the bird species(Yellow-crowned Bishop).

More will be on your way as we get to the sites

Here’s me posting, after I got to Safaricom network (at Viewpoint, in Samburu Game Reserve) area 30hrs later.

Tags: furadan, Mwea, poisoning

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