Baraza

Category: Emergencies | Date: Feb 13 2008 | By: admin

Recent posts on WildlifeDirect are very disturbing for conservationists. I also want to draw attention to several burning issues that we really need to work on if we are to make a difference in conservation in Africa.

The bushmeat trade may be an important source of protein and cash for communities living in and around protected areas. It is threatening many species such as the bonobo as revealed in the Lola ya bonobo blog today and in Ashley Vospers blog on Lomami. Some of our bloggers have said ‘it’s not a good day’ …hopefully by bringing you the facts from the ground, you will be better informed and able to make a decision about how to make a personal difference.

The importance of wildlife and natural resources to humans often causes conflicts. The charcoal trade in many parts of Africa, supply much needed domestic energy for cooking and heating. Through the ending charcoal blog we hope to find and test solutions to the use of charcoal in Congo, that can be applied anywhere in Africa. We are especially excited that this blog is a collaboration between two people in different continents who are working together! That is the spirit of community building that we are proud to promote.

We keep hearing stories about poison as a means of killing wildlife ‘pests’ and predators. We’ve heard about it in Kenya where it affects vultures, lions, elephants and primates, as well as in Uganda, Congo and southern Africa. In fact, the more we look the more we see. We have decided to do something about it so look out for a new blog on wildlife poisoning by bringing news from different sources to one place as a forum for discussion, for planning and tackling this cruel and deadly. And it’s not all bad news. In India, scientists and conservationists working with political and legal people were able to ban some of the most lethal drugs that were causing die-offs of vultures. We believe we can achieve it in Africa too.

Several of our bloggers have also revealed to us the scale of illegal wildlife trade that is going on in Africa. Trade in wildlife is sometimes for consumption, but is often for supplying the pet and ornamental trade like parrots, frogs, snakes, orchids, monkeys and insects in the west and Near and Far Eastern countries, as well as for commercial products and ornaments, (eg. Timber, ivory, rhino horn, insects and hippo teeth), medicine and pharmaceuticals, and we have heard that many primates are illegally traded for the biomedical research.

How does this happen when there are wildlife authorities in these countries both Africa and Europe and USA? Well, the business is worth billions, so “corruption” is a key word here. In addition, some countries are not members of important treaties like CITES the convention on trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora. Some countries don’t have trained customs officers, and identifying some part of an animal, or a small frog is often impossible with out the right tool or training.

Sometimes illegal trade is going on right under the authorities noses – the official forms are filled correctly but with garbage information that nobody checks. For example, in 2005 Uganda allegedly legally exported over 1 ton of hippo teeth from wild sources – I doubt that Uganda doesn’t have enough hippos to provide this – it probably came from Congo where hippo populations have collapsed due to illegal trade.

Someone has to do something.

We can help those interested in ‘revealing’ what’s happening in order to raise attention in source and market countries. We will receive information through our normal emails and info@wildlifedirect.org, and post it to keep you informed. We’d appreciate your interest and action whenever there’s need.

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Category: Emergencies | Date: Jan 24 2008 | By: admin

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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