Baraza

Category: Poisoning wildlife | Date: Apr 09 2008 | By: admin

During the last few months we have been astounded by the number of cases of wildlife poisoing that is going on in East and southern Africa. It looks like there is an increasing use of the Carbamate-based pesticide Furadan which is sold for agricultural purposes. This class of pesticides is deadly for mammals and is used to directly poison predators, and this has been decimating our lion, hyena, vulture and other wetland bird populations. The manner in which these animals die is horrific.

The toxin is easily available and is fairly cheap to purchase requiring no special permits despite it’s toxicity. A few weeks ago the first documented case of murder was recorded in Kenya where a young man poisoned his own father. He has escaped arrest by fleeing! These toxins are not only threatening wildlife but people too. Controlling or stopping it’s use is compounded by a lack of public awareness about risks associated with use of this pesticide, impacts on useful to wildlife or alternatives to predator conflicts.

We are faciliatating several of our bloggers in looking for a solution - these include lion guardians, Simon Thomsett, the Endagered Wildlife Trust of South Africa, Asuka and The Northern Rangelands Trust .This video was made by Simon Thomsett You need to watch it, but I should warn you, it has some disturbing images.

This film shows a typical scene when an animal is baited with poison and then eaten by hyenas and vultures. Hundreds of vultures died in this incident, it’s the sad brutal reality of what his happening in Africa.

Friends, I hope you agree with me, we just can’t sit back any longer and watch our wildlife being poisoned. We insist that all a signatory to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), like the Government of Kenya have a responsibility to put an end to this wanton poisoning of wildlife. WildlifeDirect is calling together a number of organizations, institutions and individuals in Kenya that are involved in conservation, control, investigations and/or research to discuss how we can stop the poisoning of wildlife.

Actions We are Taking at WildlifeDirect

We have organized a meeting on 25th April of stakeholders from Kenya and south Africa to discuss the problem and develop a strategic action plan to tackle the Furadan poisoning problem.

The meeting will take place at 9.30 am at our offices in Nairobi - Timau Plaza, 7th Floor, on Argwings Kodhek Road (opp. Yaya Centre). If you can’t come but would like to participate please send us your concerns, views and any information on the following

1. Evidence of poisoning

2. Types of poisons used, species affected, locations

3. Information on other ongoing efforts to stop poisoning (public education, legislation, enforcement, conservation)

4. Advice on how we can finance this.

Any donations made on this blog will be used to enable this meeting to take place to enable participation of attendees from remote corners of Africa. We are trying to raise $2,000 to pay for one South African expert, and for transport for those coming from out of town Kenya, refreshments, and for distribution of information.

My dream is that we can address the education and cultural issues, the legislation and enforcement, monitoring and investigatins, as well as the rehabilitation and conservation of poisoned animals. We need practical approaches to stem this. For example in England one can call a free number to report poisoning

0800 321 600

Woudn’t it be nice to have one in every African country with a mechanism to respond to all the reports?

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