Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Aug 14 2008 | By: Martin

Hi,

“In these woods, I am the master!”

Hunting or is it poaching which may involve weapons or poisoning is by far a mastery of skill rather than a crude means of survival as is mostly perceived.

I have had a couple chances during which I have talked to a poacher/hunter/poisoner by mingling in a way to suggest I am interested in apprenticeship in the same. In the end I have been amazed at how much they know about wildlife, weapons and poisons than many of us. This includes:

1. They know that poisons are lethal: Unlike what we know, the people who poison wildlife for food in significant cases don’t eat poisoned game themselves. They sell it and in many cases will buy meat or chicken for consumption. They will select the wildfowl that is not dead and slaughter it for consumption at their homes. Wild birds that remain alive are the least intoxicated and only end up being taken away because their appendages are broken to prevent them from flying during the state when they are disoriented by the poison. By the time they regain stability their ability to escape is impaired by their crippled state.

2. Poachers know where and how to get their quarry: Bird hunters know the ideal habitats to get which birds. They are the wild ornithologists who do not need a sophisticated sound playback system to get the attention of secretive birds. The only Flufftail (a kind of bird) I ever seen was in western Kenya and I was able to see it with the aid of a hunter who mimicked the bird’s call. He disclosed that that is how he got to get the birds where he laid poisoned bait.

3. They know the difficult/impossible quarry: Bird poachers know that game birds are difficult to catch. One told me that for business i.e. if you want birds to sell, game birds, the likes of guineafowls, francolins and quails are difficult to poison despite their congregating behaviour being ideal for poisoning. Instead, they use nooses and these require the patient or small scale vendor. At a trapping site in Busia, Kenya, the egrets are ignored since these will least likely succumb to a small dose of carbofuran; this will not be so economical to the poacher who wants to use a little of the chemical to get a bountiful catch. Still, egrets due to seemingly requiring a higher dosage of the poison will fly away even while intoxicated hence most likely will benefit a poacher or customer at a further locality who has not done any investment on the chemical and the actual baiting process. Most poachers on the other hand describe ducks generally as ‘dim’ and these settle to eating poisoned bait ‘without a second thought’, to use one poacher’s words.

4. The poachers also know which species are dwindling in numbers: Again, through consistent monitoring by these crude scientists parallel to their unpermitted cropping of wild birds without orders from the wildlife managers shows they are up to date with the trends and have their own red data lists out there. These red listings however mean nothing to them and they will continue with their indiscriminate hunting/poisoning methods to push to extinction the species whose numbers in those localities are struggling against the hunting pressures. Two bird poachers disclosed that the last they ever saw vultures must have been in the eighties. Our bird guide-books still bear maps showing these areas to be areas that vultures range. Men in their late Twenty’s admit having seen such birds during their childhood. The generation in their teens know nothing that looks like a vulture in their lifetime. If it is hunting that has driven the scavengers from these areas or even pushed the local populations to extirpation nobody knows. But they know the ducks, and notably the White-faced Tree ducks and Wattled starlings are dwindling steadily in the area because of poisoning.

So here we are confronting experts in what they have perfected in. By the way they also know if you are enquiring about poisoning and animals in the area then you are from the Kenya Wildlife Service, the local organization that values animals more than humans and will arrest you. So they will avoid talking to you or run away or they will just be given asylum by their own who will say nothing to you!

“The cover is good. I had better stay under cover till that KWS spy gets nothing and leaves my area!”

We need their own to change their own. But this requires incentive to the reformed to keep an eye, educate and create confidence for dialogue with the conservationists. If you can, please contribute towards a fund for one such person I know we see if there is some impact.

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Tags: carbofuran, Egret, Flufftail, KWS, Poacher, poisoning, Vulture, Wattled Starling, White-faced Tree Duck

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