Baraza

Category: Africa, South Africa, furadan, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 01 2009 | By: paula

Someone asked me if we go ‘trick or treating’ in Africa to celebrate Halloween. Apart from expatriates, we generally do not. In fact many Africans may be surprised at the idea of celebrating scary superstitions.

Sadly superstitions abound in Africa and often to the detriment of wildlife. In South Africa it is believed that consuming the eyes of vultures will give you good eyesight.

According to Kobus du Toit

“The vulture is used because of its good eye sight and local people believe if they use certain parts of the bird (head) that it will help them to see in the future”

He recommends the banning of carbofuran because “Companies develop toxic products to be used in first world countries in a responsible way. When third world countries used these products it is not usually for the primary cause what the product was developed. When a product is misused as in the case of Furadan a company can be responsible to the extinction of a species (e.g. Cape vulture in South Africa). The monetary value that a company can earn in a third world country will never match the negative publicity when a species is exterminated from the earth”

Owls are feared around the world and in Africa are  viewed as the dreaded bearers of bad fortune and are killed indiscriminately in many parts of Africa, nests are often raided and eggs smashed or chicks killed.

Fortunately its not all bad news as some brave people are trying to change cultural traditions to save owls. Darcy Ogada and Paul Murithi have been monitoring the rare and beautiful Mackinders owls in an agricultural area of Kenya where such cultural taboos abound .

From a study of 16 pairs of owls, Darcy and Paul noted that some farming practices threaten this population, particularly the poisoning of owl prey with pesticides. They found that 28% of farmers said they controlled vertebrate pests using pesticides, but they believe the figure to be much higher and note  “we also noticed that carbofuran (tradename Furadan) was often misused to kill vertebrate pests”.

To change perceptions about owls and therefore save them, Paul and Darcy are promoting owl tourism, these beautiful owls are a draw for bird tourists and the income generated from this supports individual farmers and community projects. Farmers who benefit from owl tourism are likely to know about owl diet and habits.  Paul is hoping that this will be key to saving them.

This work has not gone unnoticed as  Tony Warburton of the World Owl Trust has noted

“In his village of Kiawara near Mount Kenya, Paul has defied his community’s traditional fears by using owls as a tourist attraction. For the past five years he has been feeding and protecting owls in their natural habitat in the forest near his home. This has resulted in some 26 birds becoming habituated to human presence, some of which perch calmly in the branches of nearby trees, while others roost by day in caves scattered across the forest. He has erected roadside signs to attract foreign tourists who pay Paul to guide them to view these elusive birds. Thus, he has demonstrated to his fellow villagers that wildlife – even owls – can provide them with a source of income if only they and their habitat are protected. To reinforce this message, Paul encourages them to appreciate the enormous value of the birds by providing the same services to local people, free of charge. Truly a ‘Champion of Owls’ if ever I heard of one”.

Tony has nominated Paul for an award for his brave dedication to changing taboos about owls, and to encourage him to continue. We congratulate Paul and wish everyone a very happy Halloween.

Tags: Africa, conservation, halloween, Kenya, Owls, wildlife, witches

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Category: Africa, Lions, big cats, furadan | Date: Oct 13 2009 | By: paula

This article is in today’s Washington Post and is written by a good friend of WildlfeDirect, Dereck Joubert

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Just 50 years ago there were close to a half-million lions in Africa — about 450,000 in all. Today there are between 16,000 and 23,000. And yet, unlike elephants (a far more numerous species), lions have no protection under the international accord governing such matters.

Big cats are in trouble everywhere. The number of tigers has dipped below 3,000. Indeed, as we look at the lion population today, it’s the shadow of the tiger’s history that scares me most. Tiger bones are used extensively in the East for medicines and mythological (read nonsense) cures for ailments or limp libidos, and the demand is increasing. A growing demand and a disappearing supply is a formula for disaster.

The solution we are seeing play out is a switch from tiger bones to lion bones, which can be easily sold off as tiger bones. It’s ironic that the most famous animal in Africa, perhaps in the world, can’t even be poached on its own value but only as a “mock tiger.”

This week the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is meeting to decide whether lions, whose numbers have declined by 50 percent in the past 20 years, are worthy of protection under Appendix I to the convention: the listing of the most endangered animals. The problem is that the safari hunting industry and buyers in Asia are opposing it, because such a decree would limit what they can do with the trophies. Fact: Appendix I does not mean you can’t shoot a lion — it means you can’t import the skin to hang on the wall. And the answer to the question we are asked a thousand times is: Yes, you can still go to Africa to kill a lion.

CITES needs a country to sponsor the motion for lion protection. We can’t, so far, get one to put its hand up first, to take on the issue and save lions. No one will risk offending big safari hunting lobbies. It would seem that many are just not thinking this through. Extinction threatens by the year 2020. Then there will be no lions to hunt, or to protect.

(Meanwhile another ominous development poses a further threat to wildlife. A pesticide is being used by poachers to kill lions and many other animals. Sprinkled on meat, it kills lions, hyenas, vultures and other creatures in minutes).

We don’t have much time. The biggest threat isn’t hunters, poachers or poison makers — it is our own complacency, the lazy hope that someone else is taking care of the great beasts of Africa.

Lions and other large predators are disappearing even as we learn more about the collapse of entire ecosystems. The $200 billion a year reaped from ecotourism will be lost, causing suffering among communities all over Africa that rely on this trade.

As explorers in residence at National Geographic, my wife, Beverly, and I are calling on everyone with even a remote interest in big cats, or in Africa, to make sure that these wild systems keep working well. Scientists, conservationists — everyone — must come together, work together and support this effort now: the Big Cats Initiative. It’s a movement that doesn’t want to exclude a single soul or leave out any idea on how to reduce the conflict. We have a short window of time in which we can remedy this. It is closing very rapidly.

Dereck Joubert and his wife, Beverly Joubert, are National Geographic explorers in residence. They have spent years making films and writing about the big cats of Africa. To view some of their photos and films, visit http://www.wildlifeconservationfilms.com. For more information, visit http://www.nationalgeographic.com/bigcats.

Tags: Beverly Joubert, big cats, carbofuran, Dereck Joubert, Lion, Lions, National Geographic, pesticides

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Category: Lions, Pride of Kenya, WildlifeDirect news, big cats, furadan, human wildlife conflict, predators, richard leakey | Date: Sep 08 2009 | By: Maina

WildlifeDirect issued this press release on Thursday, 3 September 2009 after Dr Richard Leakey inaugurated the ‘Androcles Lion’ by appending his signature as support for the campaign against lion (and other wildlife) poisoning using carbofurans (Furadan). The release received audience among readers of Nairobi’s Capital FM’s site, was picked by AFP, and blogged about at the Big Cat News blog. I thought you should also have the opportunity to refer to it.

Nairobi, 3 September 2009 - Renowned Kenyan conservationist, Dr Richard Leakey, who is also the chairman of WildlifeDirect, today inaugurated the display of the WildlifeDirect lion statue that will be creating public awareness about poisoning of lions by cattle herders using Furadan. The lion statue, which is part of the Pride of Kenya campaign to create awareness about the status of, and to raise funds for, conservation of Kenya’s remaining 2,100 lions, will be on public display at Yaya Centre, a popular shopping mall in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

On Tuesday, September 2, WildlifeDirect joined the Born Free Foundation in the official launch of the Pride of Kenya campaign at the Nairobi National Park. Integrated in this campaign to save the last lions of Kenya is the inauguration of WildlifeDirect’s call to have all carbofurans - especially Furadan, a lethal agricultural pesticide that is behind the death of 75 lions in the last 4 years - banned in Kenya.

With the life-sized lion statue christened The Androcles Lion as the centerpiece of their campaign, WildlifeDirect seeks to rally support from prominent Kenyans and the general public to have the deadly carbofuran class of pesticides banned from the Kenyan market by the Kenyan Parliament. The Androcles Lion, which is painted Fuchsia, the prominent colour on the retail packaging of the most used carbofuran in Kenya - Furadan - and with chains around it denoting bondage by these poisons, seeks to communicate the threat that carbofurans are posing to the survival of this charismatic species.

Prominent personalities such as Kenya’s renowned conservationist and anthropologist Dr Richard Leakey - who became the first person to endorse the campaign - UNEP Director Achim Steiner, Nobel Laureate Wangari Mathai among others, have been invited to show their support for the push to have Furadan banned in Kenya by inscribing a signed message supporting the ban on the body of the lion. The objective is to initiate public debate and support of the proposed ban such that Kenya’s Parliament will finally discuss the motion and eventually pass a law that makes it illegal to import, manufacture, repackage or sell this killer pesticide and anything else in it’s class.

Kenya’s lion population is declining at an alarming pace and climate change, habitat destruction and conflict with humans have been the key drivers for this precipitous fall in numbers. On Monday, August 17, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) announced that Kenya’s lion population has been declining by an average 100 animals per year in the last 7 years and now stands at a little over 2,000 individuals. In the 1970s there were about 30,000 lions in Kenya. Given the current decline rate, lions will become extinct in Kenya in just two decades. KWS spokesman Paul Udoto told the media on 17 August that “communities are the largest threat to the lions and other cats.”

It is through conservationists blogs hosted by WildlifeDirect that the widespread use of Furadan by cattle herders for retaliatory poisoning of lions suspected of killing livestock first came to the limelight. With increasing reports of lion and other predators as well as birds of prey and scavengers being poisoned using Furadan, WildlifeDirect convened, in 2007, a meeting to bring together affected conservationists and Furadan importation firms in order to chart a way forward in addressing this situation. The meeting resolved that a total ban on Furadan would be the best way to eliminate herders’ access to this lethal poison and thus reduce poisoning of lions. The Stop Wildlife Poisoning campaign was thus launched.

On 29 March this year, American broadcaster, CBS, aired a documentary showing the devastating effect that Furadan was having on Kenya’s lions. Following this documentary, and the information that WildlifeDirect had provided the Member of Parliament for Naivasha, Honourable John Mututho - who brought the issue to parliament - the question of banning Furadan was discussed in Parliament. Parliamentary recommendation was that a committee be formed to craft a notice that would, if integrated into law, make it illegal to import Furadan and other carbofurans into Kenya. The Honourable Minister for Wildlife and Natural Resources, Dr Noah Wekesa, instructed that that committee be formed.

With the distinctively pink lion with a mane covered with replica Kenyan currency notes, representing the greed that is driving the sales of a poison that has already been banned in the US and Europe WildlifeDirect will continue to drum up support to the member for Naivasha and all those parliamentarians who support banning the substance. WildlifeDirect’s quest is to end the poisoning of lions by herders using Furadan, and that is the message that the Androcles Lion will be sending as it goes on public display at Yaya Centre.

WildlifeDirect is a non-profit conservation organization based in Kenya that uses the internet to create awareness about conservation issues and to raise funds for conservation through Web Logs (blogs) written by field conservationists. WildlifeDirect endeavors to create a movement powerful enough to produce a virtual endowment capable of reversing the catastrophic loss of habitats and species. WildlifeDirect is Registered as a charity in the USA and in Kenya.

# # #

For more information and high-res pictures contact:
Samuel Maina maina@wildlifedirect.org

Low res pictures of the inauguration by Dr Leakey are published in the Baraza blog http://baraza.wildlifedirect.org/2009/09/03/the-mighty-androcles-lion-comes-home/

To learn more about the Stop Wildlife Poisoning campaign go to http://stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org

The CBS 60 Minutes documentary can be found here
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/26/60minutes/main4894945.shtml

The Pride of Kenya campaign website is http://www.prideofkenya.co.ke/ and their blog here http://prideofkenya.wildlifedirect.org/

Tags: extinct, furadan, Lions, poisoning, Pride of Kenya, richard leakey

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Category: Kenya, National Parks and protected areas, Poisoning wildlife, big cats, conservation, furadan, national parks, poaching, predators, wildlifedirect | Date: Aug 29 2009 | By: paula

We are pleased to discover that we are not alone in our concern about the poisoning of lions with Furadan and it’s impact on Kenya. This is an email sent by Jake Grieves Cook to all in the tourism industry in Kenya.

There are 2 main reasons why lion numbers are declining in Kenya:

1. Human-wildlife conflict - spearing by herders and poisoning with FURADAN:

Lions are usually not very welcome in areas used for grazing livestock by pastoralists such as Maasai cattle herders. As a result lions are often speared when they go into these grazing areas and especially after they have killed livestock. The pesticide FURADAN is banned in many countries but is widely available in Kenya and is used by pastoralists to poison carcasses of livestock killed by predators. The predators return to the carcass and are killed by the poison. This can get into the food chain as any animal consuming the dead predators are also killed, from jackals to vultures.It is also poisoning people, see link below:

http://stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org/2009/03/06/detoxication-of-furadan

For more on Furadan click on the link below:

www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=furadan+lions&aq=3&oq=furadan+&aqi=g10

As well as deliberate poisoning, some lions have been lost through accidental poisoning. One of the leading lodges in the Mara was using Furadan as a pesticide on its vegetable garden. Last year a hippo died after eating the vegetables sprayed with Furadan. Then a pride of lions died after eating the hippo. Then hyenas and vultures died after eating the lions. And so it went on…

2. Loss of habitat

Many wilderness areas which were formerly inhabited by herbivores and predators such as lions have been turned into farmland and are no longer available as wildlife habitat. In the outer Mara area there has been fragmentation of land with sub-division into small individually owned parcels.

See the map below of the Koiyaki and Ol Kinyei areas of the outer Mara divided into hundreds of 150 acre parcels:

The loss of habitat means that lions are no longer able to move freely around these areas as they did before and there is no longer availability of large numbers of wild herbivores which form their normal prey. So lion numbers decline.

SOLUTIONS

However there is a way that tourism can combat the decline of lions. This is by establishing wildlife conservancies on land owned by the local communities adjacent to parks. If the local landowners can earn a better economic return from their land from wildlife conservation than they can from cultivation or from keeping livestock then they will be ready to set up wildlife conservancies. They do not need to turn all their land into wildlife preserves but a community with over 150,000 acres, such as the former Maasai group ranches, could set aside 20% as wildlife conservancy and keep 80% for livestock grazing. I have been involved with the setting up of 3 community-owned wildlife conservancies over the last 12 years: Selenkay Conservancy in the Amboseli eco-system and Olare Orok and Ol Kinyei conservancies in the Mara. See maps below:

SELENKAY CONSERVANCY OL KINYEI & OLARE OROK

We have had great success with our 3 conservancies and have been given very enthusiastic support by the local communities who own the land on which we have established the conservancies. Since the conservancies were set up, wildlife has increased substantially, in sharp contrast to the surrounding areas. We have 2 American researchers based at Selenkay who have collared a female lion and have been tracking her pride. Two lionesses there have both had cubs. In our 2 conservancies in the Mara we have several resident prides of lions and estimates are that over 30% of all the adult lions in the Mara eco-system are now resident in Olare Orok and Ol Kinyei. Our lion numbers are increasing…

You might be interested in watching 2 short TV clips of a couple ofminutes eachon the links below:

The first is a BBC clip about a recent report by researchers on declines in wildlife numbers in the Mara eco-system but which also highlighted the success of the community wildlife conservancies with which we are involved at Ol Kinyei and Olare Orok within the same Mara eco-system. All the wildlife footage was shot in our two conservancies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8129816.stm

The second is a clip from local KTN TV which highlights the two conservancies:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PT7c8LPxHM

Below are a couple of pics, taken on a night game drive recently by wildlife photographer Paolo Torchio, of our resident lions in Ol Kinyei.

There is no doubt that total lion numbers are declining in Kenya. The answer is to ban the use of FURADAN and also to encourage the establishment of more conservancies. Now the government tax authority says it wants to charge VAT on the conservancy fees! Not exactly encouraging…

Kind regards

Jake

**********************
Jake Grieves-Cook
Managing Director
Gamewatchers Safaris
P O Box 388
00621-Village Market, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254-(0)20-7123129, 7122504, 7121851
Fax: +254-(0)20-7120864
Website: www.porini.com
Email: jake@gamewatchers.co.ke

Tags: conservaiton, endangered species, furadan, Kenya, Lion, Lions, Maasai, Masai Mara, wildlife, wildlifedirect

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Category: Africa, Kenya, Lions, Poisoning wildlife, Pride of Kenya, furadan | Date: Aug 23 2009 | By: paula

As the artists gear up to complete their lions, we’ve been sneaking in to get first impressions - well, here are three amazing lions I saw today.

Here’s Butterflion and his creator - yes you guessed correctly, its our very own Dr Dudulittle, Dino Martins our resident entomologist who writes Dudu diaries. This lion sponsored by Kenya Data Networks (KDN) is a puzzle of butterflies and other bugs that children will have to find…Dino has hidden little gems like ticks in uncomfortable places..you’ll have to come see it Butterflion to understand

Ole Simba is a mosaic lion being put together by these two absolutely lovely ladies (talk about gigantuan patience! It’s slow hard work)

And Mr. Bones reveals the insides of the lion, sadly the artist, an apprentice with Nani Croze of Kitengela Glass was not there but her work is pretty amazing!

His other side is totally different

Pretty impressive aren’t they?

The artists working at Kitengela on the edge of Nairobi National Park are especially motivated because the parks lions are in peril. These artists are busy working away to complete the lions by the big day - September 2nd which is the launch of the Pride of Kenya. It will take place at KWS head quarters and the 50 lions will be loaded onto trucks and taken to Uhuru Park in Nairobi’s city center. The KWS band is apparently going to play! It should be great fun.

Every one is very excited, Nairobi is certainly in for a very interesting experience.

If you want to participate but are not in Nairobi you can! Just send us a message or a promise to lions and we will make sure that it will be seen. You can also tell all your friends, share the information with your networks on Face book or Myspace, twitter etc, Send us ideas of activities that we can conduct during the next two months to inspire the world to care about lions.and if you have a spare dollar, send us a donation and we’ll use it for kids activities. If you don’t have a spare dollar, why not send a letter to someone you know who will sponsor this event? If you’d like to know more about how you can help, email me on paula@wildlifedirect.org I really look forward to hearing from you

To follow the event Pride of Kenya please visit our blog “Pride of Kenya“. The event is a collaboration between The Born Free Foundation and a British organization called Wild in Art (remember Go Elephants in Norwich, or Superlambbanana in Liverpool…well Pride of Kenya is part of that series).

 There are only 2100 lions left in Kenya - help us save them, Donate now

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Technorati : Born Free, Lion, Pride of Kenya, WildlifeDirect, conservation, endangered animals, wildlife

Tags: Born Free, conservation, endangered animals, Lion, Pride of Kenya, wildlife, wildlifedirect

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Category: Americas, Lions, Poisoning wildlife, conservation, furadan | Date: Aug 13 2009 | By: Maina

We received this press release from the good people at the University of Pittsburgh news section. I think it’s a wake-up call to government agencies charged with regulating pesticides. This gross oversight on the part of the EPA should scare you and make you ask yourself: ‘who is safe these days?’

The dangers that pesticides pose to wildlife is immense and although the researchers in this report used only amphibians, we can all imagine what implication these poisons would have on large mammals and other species. I am particularly reminded of the danger already posed by Furadan on lions and other predators, birds of prey and scavengers. Maybe you need to read along and see this for yourself, for these poisons are not only a danger to wildlife, but also to humans.

August 12, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:   Morgan Kelly
[412-624-4356 (office); 412-897-1400 (cell); mekelly@pitt.edu]

Pitt Research Suggests EPA Standard for Pesticide Safety Overlooks Poisons’
Long-term Effects

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry article reports “lag effect,”
revealing that harmful effects can remain hidden until after EPA’s four-day
direct exposure test

PITTSBURGH-The four-day testing period the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) commonly uses to determine safe levels of pesticide exposure
for humans and animals could fail to account for the toxins’ long-term
effects, University of Pittsburgh researchers report in the September
edition of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The team found that the highly toxic pesticide endosulfan-a neurotoxin
banned in several nations but still used extensively in U.S. agriculture-can
exhibit a “lag effect” with the fallout from exposure not surfacing until
after direct contact has ended. Lead author Devin Jones, a recent Pitt
biological sciences graduate, conducted the experiment under Rick Relyea, an
associate professor of biological sciences in Pitt’s School of Arts and
Sciences, with collaboration from Pitt post-doctoral researcher John
Hammond. The paper is available on Pitt’s Web site at
http://www.pitt.edu/news2009/Endosulfan.pdf

The team exposed nine species of frog and toad tadpoles to endosulfan levels
“expected and found in nature” for the EPA’s required four-day period, then
moved the tadpoles to clean water for an additional four days, Jones
reported. Although endosulfan was ultimately toxic to all species, three
species of tadpole showed no significant sensitivity to the chemical until
after they were transferred to fresh water. Within four days of being moved,
up to 97 percent of leopard frog tadpoles perished along with up to 50
percent of spring peeper and American toad tadpoles.

Of most concern, explained Relyea, is that tadpoles and other amphibians are
famously sensitive to pollutants and considered an environmental indicator
species. The EPA does not require testing on amphibians to determine
pesticide safety, but Relyea previously found that endosulfan is 1,000-times
more lethal to amphibians than other pesticides. Yet, he said, if the
powerful insecticide cannot kill one the world’s most susceptible species in
four days, then the four-day test period may not adequately gauge the
long-term effects on larger, less-sensitive species.

“When a pesticide’s toxic effect takes more than four days to appear, it
raises serious concerns about making regulatory decisions based on standard
four-day tests for any organism,” Relyea said. “For most pesticides, we
assume that animals will die during the period of exposure, but we do not
expect substantial death after the exposure has ended. Even if EPA
regulations required testing on amphibians, our research demonstrates that
the standard four-day toxicity test would have dramatically underestimated
the lethal impact of endosulfan on even this notably sensitive species.”

Andrew Blaustein, a professor in Oregon State University’s nationally ranked
Department of Zoology, who is familiar with the Pitt study, said the results
raise concerns about standards for other chemicals and the delayed dangers
that might be overlooked. Some of the frog eggs the Pitt team used had been
collected by Blaustein’s students for an earlier unrelated experiment, but
he had no direct role in the current research.

“The results are somewhat alarming because standards for assessing the
impacts of contaminants are usually based on short-term studies that may be
insufficient in revealing the true impact,” Blaustein said. “The
implications of this study go beyond a single pesticide and its effect on
amphibians. Many other animals and humans may indeed be affected similarly.”

Tadpoles in the Pitt project spent four days in 0.5 liters of water
containing endosulfan concentrations of 2, 6, 7, 35, 60, and 296
parts-per-billion (ppb), levels consistent with those found in nature. The
team cites estimates from Australia-where endosulfan is widely used-that the
pesticide can reach 700 ppb when sprayed as close as 10 meters from the
ponds amphibians typically call home and 4 ppb when sprayed within 200
meters. The EPA estimates that surface drinking water can have chronic
endosulfan levels of 0.5 to 1.5 ppb and acute concentrations of 4.5 to 23.9 ppb.

Leopard frogs, spring peepers, and American toads fared well during the
experiment’s first four days, but once they were in clean water, the death
rate spiked for animals previously exposed to 35 and 60 ppb. Although the
other six species did not experience the lag effect, the initial doses of
endosulfan were still devastating at very low concentrations. Grey and
Pacific tree frogs, Western toads, and Cascades frogs began dying in large
numbers from doses as low as 7 ppb, while the same amount killed all green
frog and bullfrog tadpoles.

The endosulfan findings build on a 10-year effort by Relyea to understand
the potential links between the global decline in amphibians, routine
pesticide use, and the possible threat to humans in the future.

A second paper by Relyea and Jones also in the current Environmental
Toxicology and Chemistry expands on one of Relyea’s most notable
investigations, a series of findings published in Ecological Applications in
2005 indicating that the popular weed-killer Roundup® is “extremely lethal”
to amphibians in concentrations found in the environment. The latest work
determined the toxicity of Roundup Original Max for a wider group of larval
amphibians, including nine frog and toad species and four salamander
species. The report is available on Pitt’s Web site at
http://www.pitt.edu/news2009/Roundup.pdf

In November 2008, Relyea reported in Oecologia that the world’s 10 most
popular pesticides-which have been detected in nature-combine to create
“cocktails of contaminants” that can destroy amphibian populations, even if
the concentration of each individual chemical is within levels considered
safe to humans and animals. The mixture killed 99 percent of leopard frog
tadpoles and endosulfan alone killed 84 percent.

A month earlier, Relyea published a paper in Ecological Applications
reporting that gradual amounts of malathion-the most popular insecticide in
the United States-too small to directly kill developing leopard frog
tadpoles instead sparked a biological chain reaction that deprived them of
their primary food source. As a result, nearly half the tadpoles in the
experiment did not reach maturity and would have died in nature.

News releases about Relyea’s previous work are available on Pitt’s Web site
at http://www.news.pitt.edu

###

8/12/09/tmw

Tags: amphibians, EPA, Frogs, pesticides, poison, University of Pittsburgh, USA

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Category: Africa, Appeals, Lions, Pride of Kenya, big cats, furadan, wildlifedirect | Date: Jul 28 2009 | By: Maina

We are bringing the Pride of Kenya to life!

The making of the Pride: lion statues at Kuona Trust, Nairobi

We have partnered with the Born Free Foundation in Kenya to raise funds for lion conservation. Our campaign will focus on ending lion poisoning using Furadan. The centrepiece for this campaign will be a life-sized lion statue made of fibre glass. But it is much more exciting than that!

There shall be fifty such lions in different locations in Kenya forming the campaign which has been named the Pride of Kenya. Each a plain canvas for artists to create their masterpieces on. Our lion will be at our office in Nairobi, Kenya, where it will be in display before and after it gets its beautiful artwork.

Then, in November, all the lions will come out of their dens and prowl the streets of Nairobi followed by an auction in which each lion will be sold to the highest bidder. Proceeds from the sale of each statue will go directly to lion conservation work. The Pride of Kenya will be all in the same place at the same time. I can’t wait for that! But, first things first: we need to make our lion the best looking lion of them all. We need artwork.

This is where you come in. We need ideas for the art we shall create on this ‘canvas’.  I know you have lots of ideas. Send them to us. We are thinking that it would be great if we could send a global message about lion conservation with our lion. You can be as creative as you want. You can even suggest modification of the lion – as long as it still looks like a lion. But we cannot put advertising. No logos.

You can start sending your suggestions now. We have to ‘pimp’ our lion by the end of August.

A few lines about lions

The lion is the fabled kings of the jungle. But lions are losing their kingdom. Lions are virtually extinct outside of Africa except for the 80 or so ‘Gir’ lions that remain in India. Kenya has lost 90% of its lion population most of which has been lost in the last 20 years. There are now only 2100 lions left in Kenya.

Recently, Kenya lost an estimated 75 lions to poisoning – mostly by Furadan. The Kenya wildlife Service estimates that more than 200 lions have been killed in this recent period due to intolerance followed by killings through poisoning and spearing. Lion habitat is also shrinking. Human-lion conflict is also quite high due to human invasion into lion territory.

The Maasai community are best known for their warrior skills. They are also famous for co-existing with wildlife for millennia. They however have never tolerated lions mostly because - I believe - the lions prey on their cattle. To become a moran (warrior) the young Maasai man has been required to kill a lion. A group of progressive morans have refused to kill lions and have become Lion Guardians. This is one of the groups we support and they are now preaching the message of tolerance and value of lions. We also have the Stop Wildlife Poisoning Campaign against Furadan and other poisons.

Some lions of the Tara Pride monitored by Lion Guardians

Lions are the most valuable species for Kenya’s tourism – the number one foreign income generator for the country. Kenya cannot afford to lose the lion.

Who’s involved?

Kenya was home to Elsa - the star of the Born Free movie series written by Joy Adamson and acted by Virginia McKenna. Virginia’s son Will runs the Born Free Foundation. It’s their 25th year anniversary in November hence the timing of this event. Virginia will come to Kenya for the auction.

The Kenyan business community is quite excited about the idea and some have taken up their own fibre glass lions. With your help, ours will still be the best.

Get involved

You want to get involved? You can send us a design suggestion for the artwork that will be interpreted by a Nairobi-based artist on the lion ‘canvas’. But we also need to raise funds. So you can donate here (look out for the Pride of Kenya donation item). We need to raise at least US$25,000 for this particular lion. If you suggest a design, you can support it with your donation of any amount. The higher the donation the better the lion will like you.

Here is more excitement: We need to name our lion. Do you have a name for him? Suggest a name and support your name suggestion with a donation. Who says you can’t have fun while saving lions?

Tags: Africa, Born Free, furadan, Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Service, Lion, wildlifedirect

5 responses so far

Category: Kenya, Lions, WildlifeDirect news, furadan | Date: Jun 15 2009 | By: Maina

The fight to get Furadan out of reach of herders and farmers who have been using it in retaliatory killing of lions, hyenas and other predators; the incidental killing of vultures and other raptors; as well as killing of birds for food, got a boost today. In this weeks East African weekly newspaper, there was a whole spread - consisting of two articles - talking about this lethal pesticide.

The first article, written by travel writer and friend of WildlifeDirect, Rupi Mangat, discussed the hope that we have now that Furadan is being discussed in parliament. In the article, Rupi says:

“According to WildlifeDirect Executive Director, Dr Paula Kahumbu, through Hon. John Mututho, chairman of the Agricultural Committee, Kenya’s parliament has instructed that the US-based Farm Machinery and Chemicals (FMC) mop up the remaining Furadan in Kenya and that an environmental committee be set up to draft the legal notice for the final ban”

Rupi’s article can be found in the East African online

In the second story, an East African correspondent, Philip Ngunjiri, writes about the remnants of Furadan still being secretly peddled by unscrupulous agro-veterinary shops in rural Kenya even after FMC withdrew the chemical from Kenya and instituted a buy-back programme.

Philip Nunjiri’s article in the same website

Tags: East African, FMC, furadan, Kenya, Lions, Parliament, poisoning

4 responses so far

Category: Kenya, Poisoning wildlife, WildlifeDirect news, conservation, furadan | Date: Jun 10 2009 | By: Maina

NAIROBI, Kenya - 10 June 2009. While Kenyans have decried the unprecedented killing of more than 75 lions by pastoralists using Furadan as was recently highlighted in the local and global media, Conservationists now say that the plight of wild birds, which are being poisoned in their thousands, has been overlooked.

The conservationists, who convened in Nairobi on 9 June 2009 at the invitation of the Nairobi-based NGO, WildlifeDirect, said that despite raising the alarm in April 2008, the Pest Control Products Board, which is charged with licensing of pesticides, has not responded. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has however agreed to investigate the matter immediately.

Furadan, a carbofuran-based pesticide and nematicide is among the most lethal pesticides known today. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already revoked all food tolerances due to the alarming mortality of birds it caused when used on crops. Furadan was banned earlier in the EU, and Canada is considering a total ban.

The most noticeable bird deaths in Kenya have been those of vultures. The KWS records show that 252 vultures have been confirmed dead due to Furadan since 1995. ‘This is just a tip of the iceberg’ said raptor expert Munir Virani of the Peregrine Fund. ‘We have already lost the Egyptian Vulture’, he adds.

Vultures, which consume almost 70% of all dead animals, are in real danger of going extinct. ‘In Laikipia District these days, I see carcases lying out in the sun and in plain view but without vultures feeding on them’ said Laurence Frank of Living with Lions, ‘the carcases can remain rotting out there for days’.

On 25 May 2009, 40 vultures were killed in the world-renowned Masai Mara National Reserve in an incident that also resulted in the death of an 8-month-old lion cub and several hyenas. Scores of other bird species are also dying in their thousands in Kenya’s irrigation schemes. KWS reports that birds such as Fulvous ducks, White-faced Tree Duck, Knob-billed duck, Egyptian Geese, Ibis, Egrets, Spoonbills, Back-winged stilts, Storks, and many raptors have been poisoned in quantities that they only describe as ‘pickup truck loads’.

A Kenyan researcher Martin Odino has documented that wetland birds are being poisoned in rice growing areas for human consumption.  Preliminary results from Odino’s ongoing survey show that large quantities of birds are being poisoned and sold as food. Dino Martins, a Harvard PhD candidate has also reported Furadan use in fishing on Lake Victoria. These situations expose humans to this deadly chemical.

Back in the mid-1990s widespread poisoning of ducks in the Mwea rice scheme in easern Kenya gave rise to protests by bird conservation groups were leading to the ban of furadan use in Rice. ‘We stopped using Furadan in Mwea in 1998 after we witnessed its residual effect and its high instances of abuse’, Raphael Wanjogu, the Principal Research Officer at the Mwea Irrigation Agricultural Development center, told WildlifeDirect. ‘We told our farmers to use Sumithion instead’. Despite this, Odino says that deliberate bird poisoning using Furadan is a daily occurrence.

In the US, millions of birds have been poisoned in areas where Furadan was used. Recently, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned all tolerances of carbofuran on food. Canada is also looking to outlaw the use of Furadan. ‘Canada reported 70-100 million birds being poisoned by carbofurans’, says Laurence Frank.

Due to lion poisoning, many Kenyan Members of Parliament (MP) supported Navasha MP, Honourable John Mututho’s call to ban Furadan when the issue was discussed in parliament on Tuesday, 2 June 2009. The Minister for Forestry and Wildlife said that Kenya was going to ban this lethal chemical. The question remains whether the government will ban it in time - before the wildlife of Kenya becomes extinct and human fatalities emerge.

The MPs also asked the government to sue FMC for compensation for lions killed with Furadan. Although the Minister was noncommittal on this issue, he said the ministry would assist individuals who have plans to do so.

Now conservationists are calling to call for a total ban on Furadan. ‘We are being bogged down to produce forensic evidence of Furadan poisoning, but we have sufficient confessions to show that carbofuran, and specifically Furadan, is responsible for this poisoning,’ says Darcy Ogada, a researcher with Nature Kenya.

‘Human consumption of Furadan-poisoned birds in Bunyala rice scheme represents a ticking time bomb’, said renowned Kenyan conservationist, Dr Richard Leakey, ‘let’s get Furadan banned before we start losing people.’

Tags: Africa, birds, conservation, furadan, Kenya, vultures, wildlife poisoning

2 responses so far

Category: Kenya, Lions, Mara Triangle, big cats, furadan | Date: Jun 09 2009 | By: paula

Dear Friends

I hope you won’t be offended when I show these photos which are so shocking and sad that they will make you cry, then demand an immediate response from FMC and the Kenya Government for hesitating over the ban on Furadan and carbofuran.

Dead lion cub estimated to be only 8 months old. He was in a pride of 6 that fed on the poisoned carcass.  Nobody knows what happened to the others.

Stomach contents of dead lion cub contained parts of the cow (this is it’s tongue) that was laced with a pinkish poison suspected to be Furadan - a carbofuran based pesticide that was widely available in Kenya until the recent buy back by FMC. It is still available in some stores.

36 vultures of several species are known to have died in this poisoning incident. Others may have flown of and died elsewhere.

Two people were responsible for this act, and according to KWS one has been arrested, the other fled across the border into Tanzania.
“County council rangers revealed that prior to poisoning; lions had attacked and killed four (4) cattle from larger herd of cattle that were grazing in the reserve at night. The owners of the cattle were seen slaughtering and transporting the meat of the killed cattle on a bicycle. It was therefore suspected that they carried all the meat and finally poisoned one of the bovine carcasses intentionally to kill lions and other wildlife which had attacked their herd. It was their way of retaliating for the loss of their cattle”.

In conclusion KWS state that

“This is the second time when the lions have suffered from poisoning in Mara, in April, 2008, a pride of 6 male lion got poisoned from yet unidentified source near Mara Serena lodge along Mara river, two of the lions died at the scene while the rest disappeared with clinical signs of paralysis and incoordination gait and were presumed dead. This was likely to be an incidental poisoning after the lions fed on a hippo carcass that apparently died after grazing on a vegetable farm sprayed with a pesticide, due to indirect exposure and less concentration of the chemical on the hippo carcass, the severity of the symptoms in lions was mild and death only occurred after 2 – 3 days.

The poisoning this month was acute and very severe, presented with an instant death soon after feeding on the carcass. This was an intentional poisoning as opposed to the previous one, and involved deaths of several vultures already confirmed and examined. Previous poisoning was confirmed at the Government chemist as carbamates (Carbofuran) which is sold in Kenya as Furadan.

It is very likely that the same Carbofuran (Furadan) chemical has been used to poison animals again this time. The laboratory results will confirm this”.

Tags: carbofuran, FMC, furadan, Kenya, KWS, Lion, Masai Mara, poison, wildlifedirect

12 responses so far