Stop Wildlife Poisoning

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

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?

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

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