Serengeti: First Sighting of Wild Dogs in 20 Years

Category: Africa, East Africa, National Parks and protected areas, Sightings, Tanzania, Wild Dogs
Date: February 8th 2010
By: maina

Guest Post by Uwe Skrzypczak (photographer)

Stretching by the Lakeshore

When we had followed in vain the gnu herds on Friday for over 6 hours and were about to have lunch. Our Driverguide suddenly rushed into the restaurant at Ndutu Lodge and said that a half hour ago, about 7 wild dogs had been sighted only 3 kilometers away on the way to the Lake Masek.

U-turn

Wild dogs have been regarded as extinct in the Serengeti for over 20 years, therefore we didn’t really take the information seriously at first. I said to him, ‘certainly tourists may have mixed up the Bat-eared Fox with the Wild Dog’. Nevertheless we left immediately and after 5 minutes we had found the animals infront of the camera. Probably a photographer gets such a stroke of luck only once in his life. This was one of those famous ‘once in a lifetime moment’.

The 7 wild dogs moved first at the edge of the forest. There I shot the first photos freehand from the slow-driving car with a Canon 5.6 800 mm at 1Ds III. Afterwards at the lakeshore, and from the vehicle roof with a cushion with the same optics at a E0S 7 D, which is about 1300 mm  (picture angled, almost like a spotting scope, and animals, holding the viewfinder with extreme concentration). The last photo of the running wild dogs was taken after sunset. The light conditions were modest to critical the whole time, but I think nevertheless, some use came out it.

Afterwards I drove back quite ‘high’ on luck and also completely dehydrated, because we had forgotten the beverages, and with 30 gigabyte of photo data. back to the Ndutu Lodge into the southern Serengeti.

Eventually, I successfully revived myself with a cold Tusker beer. Here are some of the photos I took:

Dong make me bite you

uwe-wild-dog5

Identify yourself

uwe-wild-dog3

U-turnI run with my dogs

Make a run for it!

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Nairobi National Park wildlife count

Category: Africa, Lions, National Parks and protected areas, big cats, conservation
Date: February 7th 2010
By: paula

Every two months volunteers join the Kenya Wildlife Service to count wildlife in the Nairobi National Park. The count starts at 6.30 am which means we had to be up at 5 am. But it wasn’t the early start that threw us off course. We got to count wildlife in block N7, a tear drop shaped block in the southern end of the park.  On the way we met so many interesting creatures and couldn’t help but stop and enjoy – join us

lioness and cub small

First this lioness, her sister, and her four cubs just stood on the road side in front of us, and from there they watched us – as if we were to be counted! The cubs now about 8 months old were just beginning to grow manes,but they had baby written all over their faces.

lion cubs Nairobi Park WildlifeDirect

We had to tear ourselves away from the adorable lion cubs and go count animals in our block

nairobi National Park game count

We saw rhino, wildebeest, buffalo, giraffe, gazelles, impala, zebra, kongoni hartebeest, warthog, vervet monkeys, a crocodile and some really spectacular birds including uncommon migrating European storks (nobody is surprised to see them here this year though – brrrr) and

kori bustard

this amazing Kori bustard in full lekking condition, displaying and defending his territory aggressively for the females.

paula and dom

You can tell I woke up early – I didn’t even do my hair. Thank goodness the wildlife doesn’t care – it was a spectacular and constructive way to spend sunday.

During the count we met many other enumerators and all were busy, serious and having enormous fun. It’s not just a day out, it’s a day to help the KWS count the wildlife. It’s a day when you get to participate in a real and authentic way. We will definitely be there next time. Anyone want to join us for the next Nairobi National Park Game count in two months?

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Join the game count in Nairobi National Park this weekend

Category: Uncategorized
Date: February 5th 2010
By: paula

Dear all,

This weekend volunteers are being sought to help with the game count in Nairobi National Park. Join us -all you need is to know your large mammals, have a pen  and a pair of binoculars, (and a flask of hot coffee) would be good.We meet at the Main gate on Sunday at 6.30 am. ENTRANCE IS FREE!

Here’s  a snippet what you are likely to see

lion 2

buffalo

Expect also gnu’s, impala, giraffe, zebra, kongoni, duiker, bushbuck, waterbuck, hippo, black rhino, white rhino, pythons, leopard, hyena, grants gazelle, Thomsons gazelle,  oribi….

and lots of amazing birds (this is the season for seeing winter migrants including many raptors).

See you there.

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Using the new WildlifeTracker site on WildlifeDirect

Category: wildlifedirect
Date: January 29th 2010
By: paula

Dear friends,

We are so pleased to see the amount of activity on Wildlifetracker, our citizen reporting site for wildlife observations.

wildlife trackers HP.jpg

We built this site using the world famous Ushahidi open source software.

Today Gwilli from the Masai Preservation Trust proudly uploaded a post about the spearing of lions in Mbirikani Ranch near Amboseli.

There are so many values that WildilfeTrackers offers, try out any of the following

  1. If you see soemthing that needs to be shared, submit a report of something or some animal that you have seen that is rare, interesting, beautiful, or to report an incident that needs action.
  2. You can get reports from your own direct observation or from someone or somewhere else such as an email, twitter, blog, website, news site, newspaper.
  3. You can submit photos, video or text reports
  4. You can receive reports that others are making and refine it to specific species
  5. You can share and compare your observations with what others are seeing
  6. You can make a donation J
  7. You can advertise on our site
  8. You can respond to a report
  9. Stumble, digg, tweet, blog and share the reports with your networks
  10. You can volunteer with WildlifeDirect and help gather and moderate reports.

*WildlifeTrackers is available only for Africa

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US EPA sued for failing to protect endangered species from pesticides

Category: Poisoning wildlife, furadan, wildlife, wildlifedirect
Date: January 29th 2010
By: paula

Pesticides may be the biggest threat to endangered species world wide. In Africa the situation is serious, growth in the use of agricultural chemicals has been justified on the basis of food security concerns regardless of consumer, user and environmental risks. Sadly, most of the chemicals are produced in the west where many are banned. Despite this there are still problems of pesticide toxicity to endangered species in Europe and the USA.

Its not just Africas lions that are being deliberately killed with Carbofuran sold as Furadan in Kenya. In today’s news, a rare sea eagle has been found poisoned by carbofuran in Scotland

Conservationists are calling for action to be taken.

The Center for Biological Diversity yesterday filed notice of intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to adequately evaluate and regulate nearly 400 pesticides harmful to hundreds of endangered species throughout the nation, which also threaten human health. They claim that the EPA has violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to consult with wildlife regulatory agencies about the impacts of pesticides on hundreds of protected species that are threatened by pesticide use. In addition, the agency is accused of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act by registering pesticides that are known to kill and harm migratory birds. You can read more about it here.

If the Center for Biological Diversity wins this suit, it will have implications for all parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).

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EU Ivory trade meeting – UK says no to trade proposals

Category: CITES, Ivory, Kenya
Date: January 28th 2010
By: paula

Dear friends,

Representatives of the 17-country Coalition for the African Elephant have arrived in Brussels to discuss the ivory trading proposals. They want the European Union, which votes as a block, to say no to Tanzania and Zambia in Doha in March.

“We are asking the European Union to take a clear stance in support of a nine-year moratorium adopted in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),” Kenyan Forest and Fauna Minister Noah Wekesa told journalists.

According to an article in the Guardian, ivory prices have soared from $250 a kilogram in 2004 to more than $6,000 at present. Many scientists believe that this aws the result of stimulation of the chinese market after the November 2008 sale of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe which was bought by dealers from China and Japan. The sale of 105,000 kilograms of ivory, raised more than £15m, but has led to escalated poaching across Africa. Some scientists estimate that between 8 and 10% of the population is dying annually at the hands of poachers.

The UK has said no to ivory sales. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last night: “At the CITES meeting in March, the UK will vote against the proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to sell ivory stocks, and we would urge other countries to vote against such a sale.”

Meanwhile Namibia has backed ivory sales saying that the proposals from Zambia and Tanzania are in line with their policies. Never mind that tens of thousands of elephants are dying annually due to poaching which has been catalyzed by the one off sales in November 2008. Traffic International are warning that over 14,000 ivory items were siezed in 2009 compared to just 2,000 the year before.

TRAFFIC was established in 1976 and has developed into a global network, research-driven and action-oriented, committed to delivering innovative and practical conservation solutions based on the latest information. Yet despite all the information on how ivory sales spur the illegal killing of elephants, TRAFFI Boss Richard Thomas says “It is a really worrying situation, However, it is not absolutely clear what should be done.”

In other words, TRAFFIC does not want to influence the CITES delegaets with an opinion even though it is glaringly obvious. What is even sadder is that in 2007 the parties to CITES agreed on a 9 year moratorium on further sales. Apparently a mistake was entered on the agreement (intentionally or unintentionall) that limited the moratorium only to the five countries that were selling ivory. This mistake was not detected until after the vote and though Kenya protested it was too late. Of course what this did, was it created an opportunity for countries that did not sell ivory in 2008 to submit ivory sale proposals this year. We believe that the parties to CITES should honor the intentions of that agreement and reject Zambia and Tanzania, and indeed ask them to withdraw their proposals.

THe Coalition for the AFrican Elephant represent 17countries. Kenyas Miniser for Forestry and and Wildlife, Dr. Noah Wekesa is leading the team.

“We are asking the European Union to take a clear stance in support of a nine-year moratorium adopted in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),” Wekesa told journalists. .

“The EU plays a major role within CITES,” Wekesa insisted. “If it abstains during this vote, it will contribute towards worsening an already critical situation.”

Please support the Coalition for the African Elephant by circulating this email and writing to your CITES authorities to vote no to the ivory trade propsoals

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Thank you for your comments

Category: Uncategorized
Date: January 28th 2010
By: paula

Thank you all for your wonderful comments to the new site. We really appreciate all your suggestins and will be working non stop to perfect the site. From Richard Leakey and the WildilfeDirect Team

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Redesigned WildlifeDirect Site Launched

Category: WildlifeDirect news
Date: January 26th 2010
By: maina

Dear Friends of WildlifeDirect,

We have been working hard on the redesign of the new website and we were finally able to launch it on Monday 25 January 2010. We have brought in new features that are meant to enhance your experience as a blog reader and also to optimize the site for ease of use.

WildlifeDirect Homepage

Right at the top, on the homepage, we have placed a flash object that cycles 5 of the recent top stories in our blogs. This should make it easier for you to find what is hot within the blogs. You will still however be able to find the day’s latest posts just below that in the section titles “Latest Blog Posts”. You can also follow the latest news from the WildlifeDirect office in the section titled “WildlifeDirect Breaking News”, where you will find our press releases, an archive of our newsletters and other general news that emerge.

A completely new and exciting feature is the WildlifeTrackers wildlife monitoring tool. This tool is based on a revolutionary crowd-sourcing tool developed in Kenya called Ushahidi. We have developed it to recieve wildlife sightings, crime, poaching, smuggling etc, reports from the anyone through either a computer or mobile phone and make this information available to whomever may want to use it to act on those reports requiring action.

We have made it easier for new site visitors to know more about who we are and what we do apart from harmonizing the overall look of the site so that you always know that you are on WildlifeDirect, whichever blog you are visiting. This does not however strip the blogs of their individuality since there are many widgets that they can use to personalize their blogs.

The site redevelopments also makes it easier for you to find our presence in other forums. You can thus join our Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube networks quite easily. Should you find a story interesting and wish to share it with your friends on these networks, we have also made it easier for you to do that. At the bottom of every blog post, you just hover over the share buttons and select the network you want to share your post to…then proceed as normal.

You must have noticed that we placed a very conspicuous ‘donate’ button on the home page. This allows you to donate easily to enable WildlifeDirect continue to support those in the conservation frontline by giving them a window to the world and a place where they can raise funds to for their crucial work. You know we don’t take a percentage of the money you donate to the bloggers – we ask you for an optional donation on top of what you donate to them.

To enable us continue to support our operations, we have also decide to allow organisaztions to place a few strategically placed and paid for advertisements on our site. This is geared towards raising funds to meet the core costs of running WildlifeDirect. Don’t worry there will be no cluttering of ads, and we’ll vet all those who advertise so that we are sure their business is not contrary to our core values and that they are ethical in all spheres. By the way, you can also advertise. Just contact us (which is quite easy now – you just click on contact us on the upper right of corner of the homepage).

We also have a place where you can go to watch our latest videos and view photo slide shows although it is still not quite well populated at the moment (hey, it’s a work in progress). We are also working on a tool that will allow you to interact with bloggers and amongst yourselves online…some sort of forum where you can become members and interact with others that share your interests. That place will be called My WildlifeDirect or MyWD in short. It is also a work in progress.

There are many other new and exciting things in here that you need to explore all by yourself. Feel free to ask anything here, or through the ‘contact us’ form.

Enjoy :)

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Local People Saving The Mau

Category: Africa, East Africa, Forests, Kenya, Mau Forest Complex
Date: January 25th 2010
By: maina

Two or so weeks ago – 15 January to be exact – Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who has been unwavering in his quest to save the Mau Forest, led a large delegation of government officials to Kaptunga Forest in the Mau Forest Complex to launch the governments Mau Forest Restoration programme. A large crowd of local people – as would be expected – turned up to cheer him on in this endeavor that has bred discord from within Mr Odinga’s political party. The rehabilitation of the Mau Forest, and the eviction of illegal settlers inside East Africa’s largest forest bloc has been controversial and Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Party has suffered some seemingly ideological splits between those who support eviction and those who oppose the eviction.

But, as the politics of the Mau heated up at Kaptunga, I was in another village a few kilometres away from where the Prime Minister was planting trees. I was with a group of Ogiek people – a hunter gatherer indegenous community that has lived in the Mau for thousands of years – planting trees. I was there by invitation from Dr Mukuria Mwangi who has started an on-farm tree planting innitiative as a contribution to the restoration of the Mau Forest – and blogs at Mau-Mandala. We were latter to go to the political rally that followed the prime minister’s tree planting launch at Kaptunga.

I got to talk with Dr Mukuria and the local people about the project and  how they are going to make it work. I recorded some of our discussions on video.

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East African battle on sale of ivory

Category: Africa, CITES, China, East Africa, elephants, poaching, wildlifedirect
Date: January 20th 2010
By: paula

East African battle on sale of ivory to take centre stage at Brussels forumBy WALTER MENYA, Daily Nation

January 18 2010 at 21:00

The silent wars involving Kenya and Rwanda on one side against their East African partner Tanzania over trade in ivory heads to Brussels from January 22.

Kenya and Mali will be co-chairing a six-day meeting that brings together 27 countries which are members of the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species (Cites).

They will be aiming at forging a united front against Tanzania and Zambia’s proposal for permission for a one-off sale of ivory.

The meeting in Brussels comes less than two months before the 15th Cites Conference of the Parties (COP15) between March 13 and 25 in Doha, Qatar.

Kenya and Rwanda are accusing Tanzania of betraying the Cites and East African Community spirit of consultation before taking a major step like the one it has proposed. Kenya has also accused Uganda of sitting on the fence when issues of wildlife conservation come up for debate.

Tanzania and its Southern African Development Community (SADC) partner, Zambia, sent a proposal to the COP 15 secretariat on November 17, 2009 seeking “to transfer the population of the African elephant, Loxodonta africana, from Appendix I to Appendix II”.

Appendix I include species threatened with extinction. Trade in these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances.

Appendix II, on the other hand, includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilisation incompatible with their survival.

In the proposal, Tanzania is seeking to be allowed to carry out a one-off sale of 90 tonnes of ivory from registered government-owned stocks originating in Tanzania, but excluding seized ivory and stocks of unknown origin, to trading partners that have been already designated by the Cites Standing Committee.

The committee has designated Japan and China because of their domestic trade controls that ensure the ivory is not re-exported. Zambia wants to sell 22 tonnes of its ivory stockpiles.

But Kenya has been joined by six other elephant range states, namely Rwanda, Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone, to oppose any such sale, arguing that it contravenes the spirit of COP14 that imposed a nine-year moratorium on ivory trade “from the time of the one-off sale by Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa”, says Mr Patrick Omondi, the senior assistant director and head of species at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

Tanzania and Zambia exploited a loophole in the moratorium that appeared to bar only those who were allowed to conduct a second one-off sale of 108 tonnes of ivory to Japan and China in 2007.

The first experimental sale took place in 1997 during which Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa were allowed to dispose off 67 tonnes of ivory to Japan. Also, due to their population, Cites classifies South African elephants under Appendix II.

During 2007 meeting in The Hague, Kenya and Mali’s bid to impose a 20-year moratorium was defeated by the South’s great influence and eventually reduced to nine years with the insistence of the African Elephant Coalition.

The moratorium was meant to develop an African Elephant Action Plan before any proposal to downlist would be accepted. The plan included developing strategies for increasing population and dealing with trans-boundary concerns.

The countdown was to start once the 108 tonnes left the four countries, the resolution stated, and this only took place in November 2009. Thus, Tanzania and Zambia are asking for permission to sell their stockpiles before a year has elapsed.

Kenya has therefore accused the Cites secretariat of open bias for admitting the proposal against the 2007 resolution.

The seven countries responded by also depositing a counter proposal that seeks to extend the moratorium to 20 years.

Mr Willem Wijnstekers is the secretary general of the 175-member Cites, and he is answerable to the United Nations Environmental Programme.

Dismissed

The secretariat has dismissed studies relating legal sale and heightened rate of poaching despite evidence to the contrary. Studies have shown, for instance, that Kenya has seen an increase in poaching, with 47 elephants killed in 2007, 145 in 2008 and 220 in 2009.

Today, Kenya has 35,000 elephants, mainly due to the rigorous protection efforts which include daily helicopter patrols, a real-time communication centre and 24-hour ranger surveillance.

Elephant populations have also deteriorated in Senegal, which now has less than 10, while Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad have less than 50 each.

Botswana leads in Africa with 110,000 elephants, followed by Zimbabwe (105,000), Tanzania (91,000), then Kenya.

Tanzania projects its elephant population to be 136,753 in 2006 up from 55,000 in 1989. However, Mr Omondi insists the figure has been exaggerated to convince the world to allow trade in ivory.

“Should Cites approve the sale of Tanzania’s stockpile, the floodgates will open and the African elephant in Tanzania faces a very uncertain future. Tourism will be affected,” states a presentation by Kenya.

Kenya and Tanzania share three national parks that are among the most inhabited by elephants consisting of Mkomazi and Tsavo, Kilimanjaro and Amboseli and Serengeti and Maasai Mara.

And since there is currently no technology to identify Kenyan elephant from a Tanzanian, KWS alleges the ivory listed for sale could actually belong to Kenya. Kenya is in the process of putting collars on its elephants for identification.

Article at the following link:
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/845178/-/vpd592/-/
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