Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 03 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers,

Watching and appreciating wildlife foraging, watering, roosting or even mating fills one with excitement of what a beauty nature is from deceptive harmony and nonchalance . But looking harder and witnessing them dash and dodge from their predators(including man) ; or huddle together because man has invaded their natural microhabitat and reduced it to almost none; or see them scrambling to dring drink murky, dirty water from a muddy pool because man’s activities have caused climate change inclusive of global warming and hence drying up waterbodies and sources reminds us how tough their survival is and therefore what a miserable beauty they are.

But there is always a way to counter these pressures on them but these ways have to go through the slow process of frog-leaping through a long period of time through myriads of generations probably up to millions of years.

Watching birds out here and contemplating their survival, I pick the natural “am watching your back” stance which reminds me that at some time before poisoning, poaching with modern artillery or even when highly skewed climate changes were not the order of nature, wildlife only had one major threat: predation and developed this watching your back technique that even in birds is so defined. I took these photos without the knowledge that I was capturing the phenomenon. I must have represented the predator! A beautiful presentation by the birds nonetheless.

Malachite Kingfishers

Sacred Ibises

Little Egrets

A Ruff and a White-faced Tree Duck

Unfortunately un-natural pressures by man are faster eveolving than naturally counter mechanisms by the poor wildlife. They have a long way to evolve against climate change, modern poaching inclusive of poisoning.

Technorati : Poaching, Poisoning, Wildlife

Tags: Poaching, poisoning, Wildlife

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Category: carbofuran | Date: Jul 23 2009 | By: Martin Odino

We visited one poacher’s home at his invitation in Bunyala. This man is a renowned veteran hunter and he confirms in his melancholic narration of how once wild ungulates -’large’ antelopes, gazelles and warthogs- as well as hares roamed the hilly relief features of Bunyala.

The old man, probably in his late 60’s says he still hunts but the frequency of going game hunting has gone to almost none given the fact that there are no longer many thick bushes as they used to be where they would flush out the animals . Instead, bird hunting has become a more reliable mode of poisoning but for the high cost of the pesticide which they use for poisoning the birds. According to him, him and the other bird hunters still get Furadan but he says they deal with middlemen and even they do not know the actual source of the pesticide much. He then asked me if I did not know that the government had banned the chemical. I think he was just siziing me up to know if for sure I am ‘the government’. Well he said they are all ears to the wind just in case somebody was out to arrest them.

In the 80’s and when game hunting was the giant source of wild meat and income, my interviewee (the old man) says he used to lead a team of other men, most of which he had trained himself. A pack of hunting dogs would accompany them and there was guaranteed succesful killing of quarry on every hunting expedition. He says they would ambush and kill the animals using clubs, spears, bows and arrows after having been led by their ’sniffer’ dogs. This activity is no longer fruitful and the wild game have just gone under. Bird poisoning then picked up.

Traditionally, game birds were ‘intoxicated’ using traditional brew residue or grains soaked in local brew. The birds would then get disoriented, some even dropping to the ground then they would be picked for human consumption. The same way, Furadan poisoning evolved. This picked up easily because manpower was there, just diverted from game poaching. Further, Furadan killled numerous birds which is what was required if the income return from the birds poisoned had to measure up with the returns from game poaching.

But the old man sighed and said that even with Furadan, this contemporary form of poaching (bird poisoning) never really measured up to the old game poaching. His general observations are that birds are on the decline. He also says poaching, (it became poisoning) was and still is an economic activity, acording to him just like there were and still are traders, farmers and fishermen in the local set up, adding that poachers who are now employing poisoning will continue to as long as there is a poison to be used. If anything, there is no other animal to be poached.

The old man is a proud poacher but certainly not proud of what bird poisoning has made of him: he still wallows in poverty, despite bird poaching providing quick money . His home only boasts 3 dilapidated houses, of which 1 is his son’s who is also a poacher. I asked him if given that he was the living grand master behind the poaching and poisoning apprenticeship if he would help me change the minds of the men wasting their lives poaching poor birds by advocating for alternatives that I preached and hoped to fund raise for. The man mischievously asked if i would pay him. Well, I told him I would look into that but I think if he meant well for the society, then he would be relieved and satisfied to see that his community was on its feet after abandonng degrading and derogatory poisoning even without pay.

My host’s home: This photo was actually taken inside the compound which is demarcated by widely spaced tree line with decoy storks for use in poisoning seemingly being the only life forms gracing the home.

Besides being a poacher, my interviewee is a herdsman by day and watchman to one well off homested by night.

It is a society in dire need of liberation much as the process is painfully slow and frustrating to the persons and process of trying to impliment it.

Tags: Bunyala, furadan, Poaching, poisoning

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 11 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers, no doubt pastoralists poison carnivores-lions, leopards - and in the event scavengers-hyenas and vultures -get killed because of an incessant livestock feud between man and carnivore; prestigious wealth to the pastoralists and food for carnivores whose habitat has been encroached into and food supply as wild game greatly cut short.

Wild bird meat consumers on the other hand are presumed to feed on the ‘cheaper meat’ because they cannot afford properly domestic animal meat sold in butcheries. But just how cheap is the wild meat?

Bush meat dealers are modestly wealthy elites who hang in the business and at any one time skulk the wilderness with a fortune. This is apparent when they are arrested but will comfortably bail themselves out by paying 40 dollars easily thereby avoid the jail walls and get back to killing wildlife as soon as they can. As a matter of fact, the money they get from their business is in most cases that made by the cattle rancher who breeds and sells beef cattle. To further illustrate the lucrativeness of their business is the fact that their commodity is not just sold locally but is also exported.

Bird poisoning by all means also falls under bush meat business with birds sold for consumption. As low class poaching as it may seem, meant to cater for the poor consumer, a critical consideration shows otherwise. When you consider unit costs for the bird meat and compare it to unit costs for the common properly sold meat, beef, it is cheaper or the same price. The Open-billed Storks weigh hardly heavier than 700 grams on the average and cost 1 dollar. The weight is inclusive of feathers, entrails, legs and head parts which are normally discarded. In the end we are talking of about 400 grams being sold at 1 dollar. On the other hand, 500 grams of beef costs up to a minimum of 1.25 dollars. This is healthy meat and you are sure the cattle were not poisoned.

About 250 grams for 0.75 dollars

Traditionally, Africans fed on wild meat; there were occupational hunters and these always supplied the rest of the community with ‘rich’ wild meat. It was believed wild meat kept people strong and free of illnesses and together with wild vegetables ensured long life. The habit is on and wild bird meat eating is an aspect of it with about unchanged beliefs on the advantages of wild meat but has become more backward with poisoning.

People, myself inclusive have perceived that domestic animals in rural areas like Bunyala are an investment and reserved for special occasions but that is not significantly so. Not if visitors and convalescing patients are purchased for poisoned birds to eat; not if cattle are not sold to take children to school but instead the relatives that have moved out to towns and therefore presumed to have more income than their requirements are contacted for the education of the ‘poor’ parents’ children in the countryside and not if the poisoning is frenzied and the reason for which reared animal in part supposed to provide protein is reserved for prestige and nothing else.

Chicken roam in scores in the homesteads; cattle in herds and schools of fish are netted and available to the consumers in sizes from tiny to big and therefore fit for all ranges of expenditure.

Cattle in Ahero

Fish in Bunyala

Tags: Poaching, poisoning

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Category: carbofuran | Date: Jul 02 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers. Apologies for my long silence and thank you all for your well wishes while I waas sick. I am well and on my feet at last and in Ahero Rice Scheme. We have Furadan here!..and certainly confirmed Swine Flu in the backyard that is Kisumu Town!

Ahero is to the East and about 30 kilometres from Kenya’s largest Lake Victoria urban centre otherwise Kisumu City. I arrived in the small hours of the morning yesterday and rashly got a place that I will be coming to in the evening for the few days that I will be out here.

In the field, I got off the vehicle at the wrong stage. I thought it was fun because I always do bird surveys whenever and wherever. One local old man told me I was ‘20 shillings away’ from Ahero Rice Scheme. I chose to look at my birds and walk the ‘20 shillings ‘away and stretch my joints that just a few days back were stiffened by Malaria. Interesting diversity and soon I was at the expanse that is the Ahero rice growing fields.

A Rufous-bellied Heron not a common species unless you are in Kenya’s western flood plains

Ahero Rice Scheme

Checking around there were no signs of harvesting or planting which would correspond with large congregations of birds and poachers attracted to poison the birds. A samaritan noticed my frustration and informed me there was some planting in two of the so called blocks (a collection of plots assigned an alphabetic letter); he poijnted to one in the East and the other in the West.I decided to walk East.

Marveling at a large flock of grey-crowned cranes, some spoon bills and a Yellow-billed Stork, young boys herding cattle came to me and asked to use , rather be taught to use my binoculars. They asked me what I was doingand I told them Iwas looking at birds. One of them then asked me if I was looking for ‘birds to eat’ and I said I would not mind seeing those as well. He sighed that my timing was wrong and wish I had come at planting or harvesting time.

Close up of the large flock of gre-crowned Cranes

African Spoonbills

New friends in the field!The boys having a good time with my binoculars; part of the crowd that generously gave me information about Furadan in Ahero

I sought details from the boys and the small crowd of men that gathered about me in curiosity. I admired their honesty, looking at poisoning as if it is a normal traditional game hunting method. “We use Faradam” Faradam is the corrupted version of the name Furadan. I was infact corrected that it is not ‘Furadan’ but ‘Faradam’, so I adopted the term to get as much information as possible.

“It kills every bird and is very toxic. You must eviscerate the digetsive system, put it on dry heat and when all the tissue fluids have drained, proceed on to cook and you wont die”, one man gave details of preparation of poisoned birds. At about that time, a Peregrine Falcon casually soared overhead, hunting for doves I would bet which flew in scattered directions for their lives. One of the children called it by local name ‘Otenga’, actually the general name for raptor in traditional Luo dialect. The boy said that at home, they put ‘Faradam on Ogwal’ (Ogwal is frog in Luo) and the raptors that feed on their chicken drop dead as soon as they are done with the frog meal. I guessed this raptor may be the black kite which is a scavenger but who knows for sure? the kids insisted on a painting iin my book that was a Goshawk.

So much for the details on Furadan use for poisoning birds,I now sought to know where I can get the poison because I was curious to see the poison that could get meat on the table so easily. The boys and men for once got totally engaged in Luo language in a constructive debate of where I could easily get Furadan, sorry Faradam for now! I missed the broken Kiswahili that I can pick words and make out what the sentences are all about. However I got ‘Ahero’ and Board’. I asked if they were saying that I can get the poison at the irrrigation board and at Ahero shopping Center?

I was right. The older boy however explained that I would need to know somebody at the board to get it faster from me at the irrigation board and lately many people had opted to buy it from Ahero where the smallest pack costs Ksh. 150. The figure is not so outlying from my earlier surveys elsewhere in the country. Only a little higher which may be explains the scarcity of the commodity.

So Furadan is in Ahero and it is shocking that unlike the other sites I have been to where the name furadan sends chills to the people and rouses their curiosity against me, in Ahero it is just another commodity for poisoning birds and more shocking not at all known as a pesticidde!

Tags: Ahero Irrigation Scheme, furadan, Poaching, poisoning

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