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The ‘Stop Poisoning Wildlife’ meeting on Friday was very productive. I would like to thank all those who made donations towards the meeting and a special thank you to IFAW who also contributed. We had many more participants than we’d anticipated with almost 50 attendants - including representatives of many government agencies, conservationists, and members of the Agrochemical Association of Kenya, and three people from the company that imports Furadan, Juanco SPS.

Richard Leakey opened the meeting and reminded everyone that WildlifeDirect was only facilitating the meeting and that he wanted an open and honest forum for discussion where we all speak the truth without fear. He noted that he had been able to buy Furadan over the counter for purposes of killing wildlife and questioned whether it was adequately controlled in Kenya given it’s toxicity and danger. He wanted to discuss the impacts of Furadan on humans, livestock and wildlife, to determine if it is a problem, and if so how it could be banned.

The presentations that followed shocked us all. Laurence Frank from Living with Lions who told us that the poisoning of lions in retaliation for predation on livestock was decimating Kenya’s lion population which was estimated to be only 2,000 individuals. He reminded us that African s have always lived with lions and had ways of managing predation, but that simple economics rule; killing lions with Furadan was cheaper and more effective in the long term than building a strong holding ground and deploying dogs.

Dr. Frank advocated a complete ban on Furadan and severe penalties for crimes, as well as implementing an economically viable incentive based system for those pastoralists who do live with lions. The representative from Juanco, the importer of Furadan, was understandably defensive and questioned Dr. Franks evidence that Furadan was being used against lions in Laikipia.

Simon Thomsett who first raised our attention to the problem of wildlife poisoning, showed a very moving film about the poisoning of vultures in Athi River in 2005 some of which is on this blog.

Martin Odino from the National Museums of Kenya revealed results of a study that showed that the distributors of Furadan had little understanding of the legislation and regulatory body the Pest Control Products Board and showed that toxicology results proved that predators other ‘pests’ in Kenya were being targeted using Furadan. He suggested that it was difficult to get information from either importers or the PCPB. The PCPB representative and Juanco staff were again on the defensive insisting that nobody had come to them with information or had asked for meetings and blamed the scientists for failing to validate their results.

Dino Martins then talked about how Furadan is being used by fishermen in Western Kenya by pouring it into the lake and collecting fish as they came to the surface. These poisoned fish are filleted and marketed locally.

This system of fishing is not new, traditional herbal poisons have been used before, but the use of Furadan for this purpose is new. He showed data that suggests that it happens on a daily basis in some places, and that the local population is at risk of poisoning.

Although Juanco and the PCPB admitted knowledge of this, they denied that Furadan was the pesticide of choice and said other herbicides were much more frequently used for poisoning fish.

Then Peter Otieno of Maseno University revealed that he had conducted research and toxicology tests on vulture feet and beaks that had died after eating a carcass, and proved that carbofuran was the cause. Juanco and the PCPB questioned his methods.

The room was filled to capacity

Dr. Asuka presented results of tests conducted on the hippos and lions that recently died in the Masai Mara. She presented government chemist reports that state that they found Furadan in the stomach samples, as well as on natural vegetation and soil in the area. Once again Juanco and the PCPB challenged the results even though this was from a government chemist, and said that its’ impossible to detect a brand (Furadan), you can only detect the chemical carbofuran – it’s like naming a brand of milk in a sample, instead of saying you detected milk. I wondered why the government chemist would indicate Furadan unless there was no other source of carbofuran in Kenya. The Juanco SPS representative however claimed that carbofuran could have come from a number of sources. When asked which other sources and the proportion of carbofuran in Kenya from Furadan vs other products, they refrained from answering.

The defensive response from the agrochemical industry, Juanco SPS and the PCPB was not unexpected yet some of the members of the meeting were not happy about it. They wanted the industry and government to admit that there is a problem and to be a willing part of the solution. Many of us were surprised that such a toxic chemical can be available over the counter without proper controls or clear warnings about its toxicity. The Juanco people insisted it was an international system.

Two speakers helped us to think about a way forward. Munir Virani from the Peregrine Fund drew parallels with the situation in India where a painkiller drug was outlawed after it was shown to be the cause for massive vulture die offs.

It was important that we all remained impartial through out the meeting if we were to make any progress. Tim Snow from the Endangered Wildlife Trust who traveled from South Africa reminded us that the way forward was in a partnership with the industry and regulators. He told us that 16% of wildlife poisoning incidents in South Africa are due to carbofurans. They have a telephone hot line and have a chemical crime forum at the EWT which is funded by the chemical industry. He advised us to address the bigger issues of regulation of all Class 1A pesticides. In South Africa these are treated differently.

A number of productive conversations took place over lunch and the afternoon session of working groups resulted in a series of actions that will be implemented by a task force over coming weeks. Today Richard Leakey has spoken to the press and is calling for complete ban on the use of carbofurans in Kenya. This he says is in line with what is happening in USA and the EU.

I’m sure that this task force will have an interesting time in trying to find a solution that works for the industry and wildlife. We will keep you updated through a blog dedicated to this issue called Stop Wildlife Poisoning which will be launched this week.

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I discovered today, that the poisoning of wildlife in Africa is not unique and that the problem is much more serious globally than any of us had imagined when we started thinking about lions and vultures. I’ve been doing a little snooping around the internet and found these articles which reveal that the correct use of Furadan, a carbamate based agricultural pesticide in crops, can have unintended effects on wildlife that eat the crops in USA. We are so used to seeing Furadan being used to directly poison predators that this research completely surprised me.

The unintentional effects of agricultural poisons on wildlife are harder to prove and to stop as it involves the legal use of chemicals. What we are seeing in Kenya is the inappropriate use of chemicals like Furadan for the intentioned killing wildlife for the most ill informed and poorly thought out reasons. This is what we are most concerned about. It is a problem that is not restricted to Africa. Consider these stories…

In a case in the USA in 1994 an investigation led to the arrest of a farmer called Barnes who laced hamburger meat with Furadan and scattered it around his property to kill coyotes. He was trying deter coyotes from taking his free roaming poultry.

This is an excerpt from the US fish and Wildlife press release

“He did not know his actions would have a “domino effect” resulting in the deaths of many other animals feeding on the carcasses of those killed by the poison bait.

“This case is an unfortunate example of why toxic pesticides are very restricted in their use and method of application,” said Steve Middleton, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Resident Agent in Charge, Law Enforcement, Nashville, Tennessee. “Those who attempt to control predators must realize that the consequences of illegal poisoning may, and likely will, result in the deaths of unintended targets such as hawks, eagles, and family or neighbors’ pets. Furadan will kill anyone or anything that ingests it.”

Furadan is a restricted use pesticide which is only legally used by a certified applicator. To use Furadan as a poison is a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

In lieu of appearance in federal court, Barnes paid $2,500 in federal violation notices issued for the illegal taking of the migratory birds.”

I wonder if that was an adequate punishment? What do you think? In Kenya the penalty for killing wildlife by any means is pretty small and ranges from Ksh 2,000 to 20,000 or $27 - $270. Frightening isn’t it?

In another case, A. Laverne Ehlers was also found guilty of poisoning eagles on a pheasant hunting ground. A search on his property found 68 dead raptors including 21 bald and golden eagles on his 6,000 acre property. He was trying to protect the pheasants from being killed by raptors so that he had more for hunting! He did this by lacing tuna cans with Furadan and was also shooting birds. Ehlers plead guilty and paid $80,000 in restitution to the forensic labs and on the 22^nd of March 2002 he was sentenced on the misdemeanor Eagle Act and spent 30 days in prison, 5 months in home detention and had one year of supervised release during which he was not allowed to possess a fire arm.

The poisoning of wildlife is also a major problem in UK where a special program addresses it through CAP the Campaign against illegal Poisoning of wildlife. If any of you are in UK please look them up and download their leaflets that are shown on their website. We are trying to contact them for advice – after all there’s no need to re-invent the wheel. We’d like to learn how others have tackled the problem of illegal poisoning of wildlife.

The BBC in this article today reported that in Scotland people are also poisoning raptors on grouse hunting grounds to protect the grouse for a multi million dollar industry in grouse hunting. I feel so sad that people who hunt think that hunting is conserving the Scottish wilderness … the cash involved seems to be perverting things. Earlier this year BBC also reported that a Scottish farmer lost his agricultural subsidy worth 8,000 pounds (about $16,000) for lacing dead pheasanst with poison. The RSPB Scotland Director Stuart Housden is quoted as having stated

“Landowners and farmers receive very significant public subsidies, in return for which they are supposed to be good stewards of the environment “

We should be worried. Read this below..

According to the above article, despite all the evidence, it’s an uphill battle to keep these poisons off the market in USA, imagine how hard it will be in Kenya and other African countries!

Yet, knowing that the poisoning of wildlife is a problem in UK and USA too makes me even more determined to make sure that our Stop Poisoning Wildlife meeting at WildlifeDirect next week leads to real actions on the ground through better awareness, education, enforcement and policy changes. Please let us know if you have any useful information to share on this topic. We would love to hear your comments and experiences, as well as to receive any support to enable the meeting to take place next week.

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Dear friends, I am posting this appeal to Stop the Poisoning of Wildlife again because it’s critically urgent and we desperately need your help. We are the first organization to raise this issue in Kenya as a national wildlife crisis. It is believed that the sudden decline and total disappearance of lions and vultures in some parts of Africa can be directly attributed to the ease of access and liberal use of deadly poisons like Furadan. This shocking video about the effects of Furadan on a hyena and hundreds of vultures that ate it explains it all.

Apologies to those who saw this before. I just had to post it again because of the problems we have had with the site. When we were asked to hold a meeting of concerned people about devastating and cruel poisoning of wildlife, we expected a few people to come and start a discussion. What we have discovered is an enormous amount of concern in East and Southern Africa and the meeting has swelled to over 25 people with a super range of people from scientists, land owners, and government officials!

We now need to raise $3,000 to cover the costs of getting some of the participants to the meeting, as well as to pay for refreshments, to rent a room big enough for the group, and for all the writing up and follow up.

We are aiming to develop an action plan that will address the following

1. Education - especially of communities who are using illegal poisons, or legal poisons inappropriately

2. Awareness - to get the general public aware of the risks, dangers and impacts of poisoning of wildlife through media coverage

3. Legislation and enforcement - to get officials involved and to look at the possiblity of enforcing existing rules more effectively, or addressing need for new legislation. We demand that the government takes their responsibiliteis seriously - and we will help them to achieve this through our online network.

4. Investigations and monitoring -ensuring that everyone from land owners, scientists and concerned people have the information and tools to establish if poisons are the cause of wildlife mortalities, and to create a reporting mechanism to monitor the trends and respond when needed

5. To create a network of concerned people and a central place for information, ideas, experiences and success can be shared. We will soon have a special blog dedicated to this crisis.

We invite you to be part of this really important initiative by making a small donation to support a delegate to attend the meeting. It will cost 100$ per delegate so all I need is 30 people to donate $100 or 60 people to donate $50. These funds will bring together the people who can make a difference in ending the use of poison in the killing Africa’s big cats, hyenas, vultures and other animals. You can also help us tremendously but circulating this information to everyone in your networks, through email, face book or other means. Or, do you have other ideas to help us? Please drop us a comment. Thank you all and we look forward to hearing from you. Paula

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I have been in the USA for 3 weeks so far in New York, DC, Madison and now I’m in an internet cafe in Minnesota at the Minneapolis Airport waiting for a flight to Montana. I have been fund raising for wildlifedirect to try and raise core funds to enable the organization to expand and support more organizations across Africa, Asia and south America. Since we do not make any deductions from donations for this, we have to raise these funds independently.

It has been an extraordinary experience and some people and organizations who have made it possible for me to spend this much time in the country - I’m especially indebted to Nancy A, Turtle Pond Publications and many individuals who have hosted me or put me in touch with critical contacts. We haven’t raised enormous amounts of money yet but we do have a few possibilities in the pipeline. It has been 14 hour days for 3 weeks with one weekend in the country so far. Sleep deprivation is beginning to get to me but I only have 5 more days to go

I’ve learned how to live like a New Yorker…. using the subway is quite an experience, I love watching the bands play energetically for coins - I could just stay there and dance! America and her people always amaze me with their energy, creativity, generosity and love of life. These images of my trip and facts from Philanthropy statistics

New York is one of the busiest, most exciting places to be. It is rich in culture, art, intelligence, energy and money… beyond description.

Did you know that 89 percent of US households give to charities?

The average annual contribution of those who give is $1,620.

American giving reach a record high in 2006, with donations totaling $295-billion.

Giving to the arts and education saw donations rise more than 6 percent in 2006.

There was an overwhelming philanthropic outpouring to natural disasters in 2005.

The book I talked about previously Owen and Mzee did well because of the link to the Indian Ocean Tsunami. It is a best seller and is translated into 17 languages. I read it to 3rd graders at the John Muir school in Madison. What an exilirating experience! Two days later I received adorable letters with drawings and messages from each child.

One of the girls wrote

“thank you for reading your book. It was a great story. PS. You are a good friend”

another child wrote

“…after you left Ryan told me that you are staying with his family. He said you spend most of your time on your laptop. I wanted you to stay with me because Ryan is lucky that you are staying at his house”.

It’s not true! I sometimes get off my computer and do go out for a walk and here’s the evidence -Ryan introduced me to my first American predator ..a Cayote …here the evidence!

Books are a good way of raising awareness. The sequel to Owen and Mzee “the language of friendship” won a Christopher award last week. The award “salutes media that affirm the highest values of the human spirit. Their goal is to encourage men, women and children to pursue excellence in creative arenas that have the potential to influence a mass audience positively. Award winners encourage audiences to see the better side of human nature and motivate artists and the general public to use their best instincts on behalf of others.”

Here is our book on display with its flashy golden award sticker!

It was awarded to us by Caroll Spinney of Sesame street fame the puppeteer behind big bird and Oscar the Grouch seen here.

Why does Owen and Mzee matter in terms of charitable giving in USA? Because it inspires people to be kind and generous. We hope that our upcoming book “Miza” a true story of an orphaned baby mountain gorilla in Virunga, which is also published by Scholastic, will inspire the same sentiments and becomes a best seller because the funds raised will directly benefit mountain gorillas in Eastern Congo. As you can imagine, the situation there is absolutely critical, rebels control the gorilla sector and rangers are unable to protect the gorillas. We could lose these amazing animals if we fail to take action quickly. Rangers Diddy and Innocent are keeping us informed of the situation on the ground on the gorilla protection blog

Consider these facts.

Charitable giving accounted for 2.1% of gross domestic product in 2006.

Between $6.6 trillion and $27.4 trillion in charitable bequests will be made between 1998-2052.

^{However, only 3% of this will go to animals and nature}

Of that 3%, less than 3% will go to international programs. I cant understand why conservation in the worlds most biodiverse regions can rank at such low the priority on the agenda of charitable people. It is hard to imagine how we can save the most vulnerable species and conservation areas if they occur outside of the richest places of the world.

I wonder ambitiously, could we, you readers, and bloggers on WildlifeDirect turn this around and create awareness of the needs in Africa, Asia, latin America? Could we create a critical mass of information and change the giving behaviours of the richest, most generous people on earth?
The situation is urgent, multinational firms are beginning to greedily extract Africa’s rich natural resources taking oil, minerals, timber, crops and fish, ….we must ensure that the development of Africa does not leave it with a legacy of destruction that future generations of poor Africans have to pay for.

Can we prevent the destruction of the worlds heritage by creating a massive global network of caring people and organizations - before it is too late?

I took a walk at 10 pm one night past the Rockefeller Center and watched the skating with amazement. I sometimes think it would be easy to give up the tough task of conservation in Africa, and just get used to working and living in New York. But I know I’d miss home and Africa too much, because I could not fulfill our mission to save the gorillas, elephants, lions and trees - they need us in Africa.

While I’ll be sad to say goodbye to USA when I finally leave next week, I’ll be so glad to be going home with even more energy and blogs including snow leopards, sun bears, grizzlies, lemurs, …..to name a few.

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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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The last few days have really had us all on our feet at WildlifeDirect. There have been a lot of atrocities committed against Kenya’s wildlife who unfortunately are being used as a scapegoat for a much deeper rooted problem in Kenya: land.

Last week we found out through one of our partner organisations, the Lion Guardians that three lions were tragically killed. Such inhumane acts are becoming more and more common and whilst they are often the result of retaliation due to Pastoralists losing their livestock to an opportunistic carnivore, there is really no justification for taking revenge on an animal that is only following its basic nature. Reuters were quick to pick up the story and once a media house like them picks it, it often travels far and wide across the globe.

When this came out, we quickly got word that up to 14 elephants had been speared since february this year and 4 had died all within the same Amboseli region. We spoke with world renowned elephant specialist, Dr. Cynthia Moss who post a guest blog on Dr. Richard Leakey’s WildlifeDirect blog. It was only a matter of time before the media turned their panoptical gaze to this blog as well and in less than 48 hours the story had appeared on several leading papers and National Geographic had put a story on these unfortunate incidences.

With all the debate about the reintroduction of culling of elephants in South Africa, Dr. Leakey, renowned for bringing an end to elephant poaching in Kenya over twenty years ago most certainly had a thing or two to say about the highly controversial issue. I think much to everyone’s suprise, he stated that whilst he felt culling to be a repugnant practice, he also felt South Africa had little choice given the current circumstances. Once again, yet anothermajor media house, BBC picked up on his blog and ran it in their Green Room and it also made front page of the BBC Africa news section. And before I had time to read the article, several comments were flying into my inbox from all sorts of different angles. People have strong opinions about lots of things and the beauty of the internet is that you can voice them and it doesn’t necessarily have to lead to a physical fight!

Day 3: I get a phone call from the German Press Agency asking if we have any more information on the arrest of the Provincial Director of South Kivu and Chief of World Heritage of Kahuzi Biega National Parc who has been charged with the murder of ten gorillas mid last year. I had in fact not heard about this but information was at my fingertips through skype, gtalk and emailing. Yes, it was true and this was a huge breakthrough against corruption in the ICCN which work to protect thewildlife and environment in one of the most complicated areas in the world, DR Congo. Soon the blogs were up and more journalists calling and asking for statements. What was critical was to get accurate information for the journalists to report. I love the internet! I spoke to my colleague whom I can barely reach on phone using skype and was able to provide the BBC with reliable information right from the ground. Not even an hour later, the news was out on their front page!

It’s 7pm in Nairobi where the rains are just beginning. I am fortunate enough to have a roof under my head and so much more, and blessed to have the ability to reach the world through an online social network that continuously helps to bring about change…so let’s hope we can bring justice and equality to all living creatures once and for all…

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I am typing this in the car on the way home (I have a little gizmo that connects to my computer). I’ve never done this before (posting literally on the road)  but then rarely have I felt so compelled  – this is an emergency. We just heard from the lion guardians that lions are being speared in Amboseli – one of Kenya’s premier protected areas. But it’s not just lions, I have heard from good authority that it’s not just lions that are being targeted. Eleven elephants have also been speared to death and we’re trying to find out from Joyce Poole and the Amboseli Elephant Program if this is true.

This is not about human conflict, it’s not about hunger. It has that stinking whiff of rotten politics.

I’ve tried consulting with my colleagues at Kenya Wildlife Service, on the record they are not aware of any ‘reports’. Of course, you can be ‘ignorant’ of issues so long as there’s no typed report on your desk.

But off the record they have admitted that lions and elephants are being killed in Amboseli. They are worried, really worried and they talked about it at a big conference recently. The tourism crisis is cutting deep, it’s affecting everyone. Wildlife compensation schemes that depended on tourism have all but collapsed. Communities that are no longer benefiting, are retaliating. The government authorities held a meeting last week to talk about the serious situation facing lions.

It’s very serious. Kenya’s lion population has crashed from 10,000 in the 1970’s to fewer than 2,000 today. So, where is the response, where are the arrests, where are the convictions. Where is the justice? We are furious. What does it take to wake up the nation? Lions and elephants are probably the greatest tourist attraction to Kenya. Without them we have little hope of recovering the tourism numbers we once took for granted.

I just wish the authorities could be honest and transparent about what is happening, stop being afraid of the truth, and getting into the mindset that we, the public, the lovers of wildlife, the world at large, can help.

Ok..I have to stop now and send this post , we’re coming up to a police check!

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Tuesday was cut short due to a hasty office evacuation due to riots following the murder of one of the opposition memberes of parliament. The trouble ended quickly but everyone is still very edgy. So yesterday I had alot of catching up to do with Brian on our plans to help save the Mara Triangle and I also had the pleasure of meeting Anthony Kasanga of the Lion guardians! I can confirm that he is as charming in real life as he is on the blog! We had a good chat and laughed a lot and talked seriously about his ideas for the lion guardians blog…..I’m sorry, I can’t finish what I was going to write about.
I started this blog post with a light heart, recalling a fun day yesterday, the first day of late in which we have felt ’safe’ and free to go about our work freely. I’ve just been informed that another member of parliament has just been murdered, shot. Recall that one MP was shot just two nights ago. We were afraid it was politically motivated but the police insist it was a ‘normal’ shooting (What on earth is a normal shooting? He wasn’t even robbed?). Now riots have started afresh in five big towns across Kenya. We are about to close the office for the second time this week to ensure we all get home safely. I can’t describe how low I fee at this moment, I feel disgusted and ashamed but mostly confused at what is going on.

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Almost two years ago now, in one of the most beautiful parts of Kenya, Laikipia district, a group of biologists were sitting in the middle of the savanna grassland listening to each others presentations about research we would do had we an unlimited supply of money. Mine was not as outrageous as most of the others but I do see why it could have been important now. I wanted to conduct a nation wide investigation into the apparent loss of vultures in all the national parks. I had no factual backing to this ‘loss of vultures’, it was just something that had almost slapped me in the face when I went on a safari. Where had all the vultures gone? As a child I remember seeing countless numbers of all species of vultures, circling the skies, perched on trees with such sinister looks but at that age I was influenced by the evil vultures from the Disney movie of Robin Hood.

This is me with the long hair and orange top, giving my ‘vulture presentation’ and some of my fellow conservation biologists

The point I am trying to make here is that I found my answer to a question I silently pondered over for many years. Another threat to remaining African Wildlife: Poisoning!

It might not be the only reason to affect vulture populations but it certainly is a tangible and severe threat.

So what exactly happens? It’s mostly people that live near wildlife that are setting deliberate traps of poisoned carcasses to deter predators and keep them away from their land and livestock. Unfortunately poisoning causes vast numbers of deaths to most of the top predators and birds of prey alike, being the indiscriminate killer that it is. The poison accumulates in the tissues of whatever feeds on it thus making birds of prey vulnerable to secondary poisoning. There have already been reports from some of our blogs about this problem. Simon Thomsett had written a post about it last year, Lion guardians reported the loss of two of their lions and the Northern Rangelands Trust as well.

I recently read an article about the worst case of poisoning in years in Namibia where 25 birds of prey had been killed by feeding on the carcass of a poisoned dog. The dog had fed on poisoned bait and died. The targets of the baiting were jackals. This shows how indiscriminate the poisoning can be. It’s not a method just restricted to Kenya but occurs all over Africa and elsewhere in the world.

In Uganda, Queen Elizabeth National Park 80% of the hyenas have been poisoned and the at least 15 lions and this information is from June last year.

In a study conduced by one of our bloggers Seamus Maclennan in the Tsavo-Amboselli region in Kenya states that over 108 lions may have been killed in the region either through Masaai cultural act or poisoning.

Are there solutions? Someone like Seamus (Lion Guardians) or Sam Maina (The Water Hole) may be in a better position to tell you the answer but the immediate thought would be to educate people about the effects of the poisoning but how many animals will fall victim in the meantime…it’s a long term solution and those take a long time to see results. More immediate solutions would be to pass laws to ban chemicals such a carbofuran commonly used for the poisoning. For such action we need to get the message out.

If something is not done at this stage it may lead to the extinction of some of our birds of prey in the immediate future.

I had to use Sam’s photos from the Water Hole blog as I’m not out in the field but it is where I want to be.

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After two incredible days in Selinda we drove to the great Kalahari conservation area - the worlds second largest conservation area – second to Selous National Park in Tanzania. This was described to us as the least visited, and wildest corner of Botswana that was made famous by the couple Mark and Delia Owen through their best selling book ‘Cry of the Kalahari‘ - they studied black-maned lions and brown hyenas in an area so remote that the animals had never before seen humans. Cry of the Kalahari, their best-selling book, is their account of their research and adventures. According to people in Botswana, the book revealed the threat that the veterinary fence posed to migrating wildlife and as a result, “apparently” this public revelation led to their eviction from Botswana although they continue to do research and support conservation through their foundation The Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation

We arrived at the gate of the Kalahari after driving down one of these nearly 100 km veterinary fences and were met with a stunning surprise

Gemsbok were everywhere … we were advised to camp at Deception Valley in the desert which is where the Owens did their research. Well, I can see why they chose the location …look at these photos and tell me if you think it’s a desert … or even a valley!

Males were testing females

It had rained recently and the animals were getting ready for breeding - the males especially were very frisky

This is the valley! Some springbok had started calving

Massive flocks of quelea were everywhere

As were these ‘crazy’ birds which spent the entire day making ridiculous raucous calls…I hve no idea what they were

None of the animals were particularly worried about us … this is a HUGE monitor lizard that walked right by us flicking his bright red forked tongue around as he/she went

Some of the smaller animals were just adorable

And everyone was enjoying the flush of green grass - these are striped ground squirrels

And I was thrilled to meet one of my most favourite animals, really close up…. meerkats

I hope I’m not getting repetitive, but these animals are stunning - and very well behaved for an amateur photographer like me!

I also personally adore jackals - there were hundreds of these black backed jackals around … often alone or in pairs

Others saw lions but we missed them, the only evidence was their deafening roars at night (I could swear they were in our camp!) - and this….

We missed witnessing the lion kill the night before, but got one scavenger trying to get something off the remains

In Selinda we witnessed lions killing a wild dog which many think is simply a case of a predator getting rid of it’s competition

Well check out this

These Jackals walked right up to the cheetah but didn’t seem at all bothered with it, and neither did the cheetah

They both lay down within 30 m of each other

and then the jackals started making these amazing cat like calls

Well, as you can see, it was a feast, wildlife photographic candy…

We celebrated our Christmas under the stars in Deception Valley in the Kalahari Desert - wondering about the name.. I think it’s a deception that its a valley or a desert.

They say that the Kalahari Desert is about the most dangerous place to go to in Botswana because it’s HUGE and you rarely see anyone else. … which is a big part of the attraction for me. But, if you break down you’re scr*wed!! Nobody is likely to find you for days! We had to rescue a group of young rather intoxicated people whose battery died on them in the park. They were desperate and we had to use our battery to start their car. Being there for Christmas day only, they had little water or food… (but lots of booze!). We thankfully got them out with help of other visitors after an hour or so… and then we discovered that we had brought no water for bathing… so it was 4 days in the bush without a bath… nice! It certainly kept the bugs at bay!

We did achieve something important, a realisation that a blog about this surprising place is definitely of interest to WildlifeDirect if it can help to raise funds to save this spectacular part of Africa.

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