We should join them in celebration.

But our wildlife also need freedom from persecution, and extinction. On this important day, therefore send our Independence Day greeting card to an American and contribute to the freedom of our wildlife. When you make a donation, you will be giving WildlifeDirect the strength to support the more than 100 projects that blog on this platform. You will also get a card sent to your email so that you can send to your family and friends.You dont have to be American send this card…you can send to your American friends this beautiful card that shows you care not only about them, but also about the wildlife of this planet.So why not CHANGE today and send a card with a cause? Afterall, Independence Day has been arround for 233 years a little change ($25) will make a great change.Happy Independence Day!

Fathers are the icon of strength and protection for the family. Instead of all those electronics and tools that he already has, why not give your father the opportunity to protect the earth this year? You can donate only $20 and give your father the satisfaction of having protected the wildlife of the world for his children, and his children’s children.

WildlifeDirect has provided a platform for more than 100 conservation projects to communicate with the world about their work. Through communication, these projects, which otherwise would have remained unknown, have been able to raise awareness about the plight of wildlife in their locality and at the same time raise much needed funds to continue with their noble work.

WildlifeDirect gives this service for free to these projects. To meet the need of keeping this service available to this deserving projects, we need the support of those who care. We need fatherly protection too. Without you, we cannot help these conservation projects That is why today, we are asking you to give your fathers a chance to protect us like the good father he is

Here is how you can give your father the feeling of protection. Just donate only $20 in the donation item that we have created on the right. Once you donate, leave a comment stating the name of your father, grandfather, or other fathers that you would like to honour on fathers day. We shall then write a blog post on this blog on Fathers day to thank you and your father for being protective of our wildlife.

If we all give, we shall make history by raising the most funds in the shortest time here at WildlifeDirect. What are you waiting for? Let’s make Father’s Day the most successful and protective day for fathers and the wildlife.

The team and I were immediately captivated by CTPH and decided they would make a phenomenol blog advocating gorilla conservation. On our return to Nairobi we started making preparations for the followup visit conducting a blogging training workshop in Uganda and Rwanda.

Organised with the help of CTPH a 10 hour journey from Kampala, we held a workshop in Buhoma for the benefit of the community members adjacent to the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. An IT centre had already been established by CTPH, run on the ground by David Matsiko. The centre has trained over 150 community members to use computers and navigate their way around the Internet.  This provided an excellent opportunity to train members in the art of blogging and share their experiences and thoughts through a twin blog to the CTPH one Gladys updates. A blog that would be all about the community and the role in gorilla conservation through CTPH.

Our workshop and lodgings were at the CTPH campsite close to the national park.

Alex Ngabirano gave us a tour of the lab where all the samples collected from the field  gorilla fecal samples) by Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers were stored and analysed. After traveling to Uganda and Rwanda Twice now working with organisations doing gorilla conservation and still not having seen one myself I was just as happy to be staring into one of the specimens containing a gorillas lunch from a week ago.

Alex explained how CTPH began it’s work looking into the incidences of disease outbreak in gorillas and comparing it to that of the human population in communities nearby.  It is described in more detail in the introductary post on the CTPH blog.

For more on CTPH keep your eyes on their blog.

Published by Masumi.

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

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.’

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”.

We have just received the copy of the Hansard or official record of the discussion regarding a ban on carbofuran  in the Kenyan parliament last Tuesday which is available on the government website here (pgs 8 – 11).

We at WildlifeDirect are very happy to report that many Kenyan members of parliament were up in arms about the loss of wildlife to this pesticide. Some were so upset that they wanted the Minister for Wildlife to sue FMC for every lion killed at Ksh 10 million (about US $13,000) each.  The official record shows that at least 76 lions were poisoned with carbofuran between 2001 and 2009. We know that this is the tip of the iceberg as the data emanate from just one study in two of Kenya’s many districts.

I am repeating the table to show just how devastating Furadan has been to Kenyan wildlife in recent years because I’m still shocked by the numbers. And these probably represent a tiny proportion of the actual numbers of fatalities as most animals will have died un-detected and un-reported.

The number of animals that have died as a result of poisoning by carbofuran from normal use and abuse is astronomical as can be seen in this table – I can’t imagine how many individuals are represented by pick up truck loads of birds of various species. Probably hundreds if not thousands.

It is an enormous relief that the government has admitted the problem and the Minisiter for Wildlife has stated that Carbofuran will be banned. This ban will give our lions much needed breathing space.

The ban will set an important precedent, that wildlife in Kenya is valuable and should be cherished. That pesticides must not threaten our people nor our wildlife. With a ban in place the Kenyan government agencies and conservationists can launch an education and awareness campaign to respond to wildlife conflict concerns, and to agree on more environmentally friendly pest control systems in agriculture like Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and organic farming.

It also heightens ours state of alert towards the deaths of our wildlife. Kenyans will understand that deaths of wildlife that occur as a result of pesticides are not acceptable. Abuse of pesticides carries heavy penalties and is morally unacceptable.

But a Kenyan ban is not going to be enough.  So long as it is still legal to use carbofuran in Africa, Asia or South America, this pesticide will continue to kill wildlife, even in Kenya and USA – because wildlife, especially birds migrate.

We’ve come very long way on a shoestring budget thanks to the committed work of a number of volunteers. Our campaign is not over, we need help. We now aim to educate regional governments to these risk as we seek to eliminate carbofuran, a WWII pesticide. We seek support of the International organizations that supported the EPA’s decision to revoke carborfuran tolerances in USA. So long as carbofuran availability remains in the migratory corridors of American wildlife and birds, these species will not be safe.

Americans should know that FMC have publically stated that the carbofuran ban in USA will not affect production of Furadan in their Philadelphia plant - that means they plan to export the product (and the environmental problems that come with the use of carbofuran) to other countries. FMC have also announced their intention to object to the EPA decision in order to restore the use of carbofuran in USA. We must do everything we can to prevent this from happening.

Please help us to bring about the eradication of carbofuran in Kenya, Africa and the world by making a donation to support the campaign now, circulate this information widely on facebook, myspace, twitter digg, stumble, and all your other networks.

Thank you

I just got this note from a friend…

www.bushdrums.com just posted information on the new wildlife bill for 2009.  Please see http://www.bushdrums.com/filedb/file.php?id=1&filecat=0&eintrag=0.

I think some of your conservationists might be interested in reading this.

Please leave your comments on the new Kenya Wildlife Bill on the Bushdrums site or right here on Baraza. Thanks

In the wake of the latest lion poisoning incident in the Masai Mara, the Kenyan Parliament on Thursday responded angrily to the response of the Kenyan Minister for Wildlife on the issue of whether to ban Furadan. He informed the house that the manufacturers had withdrawn the pesticide, thus suggesting there was no need. He also shifted the responsibility for bannng the product to the Minister for Agriculture. Parliamentarians were furious, stamped their feet and yelled in protest.We have been talking to friends all over the country and nobody can find Furadan in a shop anywhere, though a number of people have said that Agrovets have admitted to having a stash behind the counter that they will sell only to trusted ‘friends’.

Even though the Furadan buy back seems successful, everyone knows that the withdrawal of Furadan from Kenya is just not going to be good enough

Here are three reasons why

• First FMC reserves the right to reintroduce Furadan at any time
• Secondly, a ban provides that much needed platform for awareness about the dangers of this pesticide. Furadan is said to be the pesticide of choice for pest control and is used to control moles, baboons, lions, elephants and even termites by uniformed farmers and pastoralists. Even when used according to the label, the EPA says that carbofuran is not safe enough for highly regulated American farmers, consumers and wildlife.  If it’s not safe enough for people in USA, then it’s certainly not safe enough for poorly regulated and largely uneducated Kenyan farmers.
• Thirdly FMC does not have the monopoly on carbofuran pesticides. It is now manufactured by a number of firms in China, India and Pakistan. These companies can easily fill the market in Kenya.

We give John Mututho, MP for Naivasha and Chair of the Parliamentary Committee Two thumbs up for his courageous efforts to have Carbofuran banned. We congratulate him for getting this issue into public debate, and we wish him full success in winning this battle.

We also congralate KWS for their swift action  following the recent lion, hyena and vulture poisoning inciden in the Masai Mara on May 25th. Like KWS, we highly suspect  Furadan to be the pesticide. One Mara resident stated ‘it’s certainly Furadan, it’s the only poison that is used here to eradicate pests’.

We regret that the poisoning incidents are tarnishing Kenyas name, and makes the Masai Mara seem like a place where the local community are at constant conflict with wildlife. Things couldn’t be further from the truth. Most of the local communities benefit tremendously from tourism here and  value lions higly as the most sought after species for visitors. Indeed, tourism revenues even pay for their cattle which represents their wealth. However, there is a drought and cattle are being driven into the protected areas in search of grazing. This is illegal and the authorities are trying to enforce the law, but there landscape is vast and are a few individuals slip past the patrols. This is when cattle get taken and pastoralists sometimes lose their pateince when a cow gets taken by a lion. Furadan is a convenient way of disposing of the lions, it is very cheap, tasteless, and has no smell. Only a few grains will kill a lion. It usually kills much more than the intended targets.

The local communities are not at all happy about these incidents and are pleased with the arrest of the culprit. They have regularly appealed for help in reducing the wildlife livestock conflict. This is an opportunity for conservationists and many of our partners have come up with innovative approaches from guarding the lions to building re-enforced lion proof bomas for the cattle to sleep in. Support these projects to help save our lions.

Please help us to continue raising awareness to save our endangered wildlife. Thank you for all your support towards WildlifeDirect.

In the other news item appearing in the Daily Nation, the Kenya Wildlife Service, which is the custodian of Kenya’s wildlife, has accused farmers of poisoning one lion, some hyenas and 35 vultures in the Mara. The KWS said that there were traces of a pinkish substance on the carcase that was used to bait the these carnivores and scavengers.

The articles are not available online so we did the next best thing down here: