Baraza

Category: Africa, WildlifeDirect news, conservation, wildlifedirect | Date: Nov 17 2009 | By: Maina

Paula was one of the speakers in a recently held Technology conference in Nairobi. Mark Kaigwa (aka mkaigwa), one of the friends of WildlifeDirect, who was attending the conference on 8 August 2009, wrote the great entry about Paula’s presentation reproduced below. Thank you Bwana Kaigwa.

Engaging Conversation on Conservation in Africa
Posted on Tuesday, 17 November 2009 by mkaigwa

Paula at TEDx Nairobi (Photo via mkaigwa)

A self-confessed tree hugger, Paula Kahumbu opened by reminding us how extraordinarily privileged Kenya is as a country as far as diversity is concerned, and how most times, it’s taken for granted by Kenyans themselves. By demonstration when she asked to see those in the crowd who had been to a National Park in the last month, only a handful inferred to the affirmative. It brought life to her statement!

She shared on how Kenya has one of the world’s largest diversities of bees – over 1500 species. We assume the Maasai Migration is going to be around for generations (for those who’ve not seen it already.)

Her second confession was that she didn’t have a television. Her veranda is her television from her home on the edge of the Nairobi National Park and you can always follow her amazing tweets and extraordinary wildlife pictures.

Paula elaborated her reason why she’s a wildlife conservationist and set out to make a case. “We’ve often been told that wildlife is crucial to the economy and our economic development. However, we’ve been misled to believe that it is important for tourism alone.”

“The world’s current population is 6.9 Billion people. We’re far too many people for the planet…,” as Paula showed and while we’re now aware of our carbon footprint, we shouldn’t forget our ecological footprint. We’re using the earth, our forests, our seas and changing the landscape faster than it can regenerate itself.

“Over 1000 species are disappearing every year,” she stated. Adding that two-thirds of these species have named, they’re yet to be classified and already disappear off the face of the earth. 25% of our mammals are facing extinction. A sad reality to come to terms with.

Paula went on to share information from a recent study done in the United States where scientists conducted research and studied how valuable insects were to the economy. As insects performed basic services for human beings and the value in a year is $57 Billion and that’s a service that is free; remarkable.

The US is facing a major crisis with their bees, having lost around 80% of their bees. Bees contribute about $15 Billion a year to the US economy and that brought home a stark reality of the situation, given that Kenya has one of the largest biodiversities of bees.

She went on to elaborate on the current drought in Kenya (which has since turned into rains, and occasionally floods in some provinces). The reason why this drought is hurting, Paula said, was because we have degraded our landscapes to such an extent and silt is filling up our dams and the water is unable to penetrate the soil and replenish the reservoirs.

The global cost of saving our protected areas is $45 Billion a year for the whole world. The estimated value of these protected areas in terms of ecological services is actually $5 Trillion. She jokingly asked Aly Khan Satchu what the return on investment was.She brought the point back to order that we’re losing the race with our environment and examined the situation in Kenya with the Kenya Government and she frankly admitted that we’re losing the race to conserve our wildlife.

She also told the amazing story behind Owen and Mzee, her award-winning children’s book about a hippopotamus and a tortoise. Paula was working for Bamburi Cement in the coast running a small sanctuary, using a rehabilitated quarry where they kept hippopotamus after the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami that hit the coast just outside of Malindi.

The story, involves a hippopotamus calf that was orphaned during the tsunami and had to be taken care of. The 1 year-old hippo mistook a Seychellois tortoise for its mother, and not longer after the first pictures were taken, they quickly became viral and were abuzz all over the internet.

People were soon calling, texting and emailing asking how the tortoise and baby hippopotamus were. By this time, they had both been named, the hippo; Owen, after the man who caught him and the tortoise; Mzee – a respectful Swahili word for elderly person.

So they started a diary, written by a man who had been working at the sanctuary for 25 years, Steven Twaid. He would show what was happening with Owen and Mzee as they played, swam and grew closer together. Soon, they had over 500,000 people reading and keeping up with the life of Owen and Mzee every month. From this, they developed the children’s book – Owen and Mzee.

The book has since sold over 1 million copies and is in 24 languages across the world. From this, her meeting with Dr. Richard Leakey lead to her running Wildlife Direct which has grown from 7 blogs to over 115 different blogs, each with its own set of bloggers, volunteers and fundraisers. They’ve since raised over $1,000,000 since 2007 and now, enable people all over the world to donate and adopt projects and conservancies as they support them.

An example she raised was in the Maasai Mara where, after the post-election violence, the Maasai Mara needed funds to sustain its conservation efforts to cover the shortfall due to the nosedive in tourist revenues. They raised $280,000 towards this effort.

She spoke of the Lion Guardians project with Anthony Kasanga, a 23 year old Maasai man who is a poacher turned Lion protector. The Maasai people, as a rite of passage, have their young men kill a lion. Anthony, together with the Lion Guardians, has been able to raise $28,000 and develop a strong international following as he educates Maasai in the region on how and why to protect lions.

Paula shared on a trend that Wildlife Direct began noticing – lions were being poisoned with a cheap over-the-counter pesticide called Furadan. Kenya’s already lost 85% of lions as a result of poisoning. The impact on tourism, if this trend continues would be devastating. Luckily, Wildlife Direct rallied support and was even contacted by the US-based manufacturer of the pesticide, who agreed to take it off the market in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

The challenges for Wildlife Direct include raising support, especially in this period of the recession and developing the technology from their base in Kenya. Changing perceptions from a reliance on governments to bring environmental change is something Wildlife Direct is set on developing in Africa

A key strength of Wildlife Direct is its transparency, where all support is accounted for and results are documented by the bloggers and every action is shown and shared. The tangible impact shown to the world, shows the potential of the model behind Wildlife Direct which can be replicated and applied to different fields such as poverty alleviation and education.

Tags: biodiversity, conservation, environment, extinction, furadan, Masai Mara, Paula Kahumbu, poisoning, population, species, TEDx Nairobi, wildlife, wildlifedirect

2 responses so far

Category: Poisoning wildlife, wildlifedirect | Date: Nov 16 2009 | By: paula

After WildlifeDirect spoke to the father of 3 year old Kimutai last week there has been a flurry of media regarding this case. National Geographic also interviewed the childs father and the manufacturers of Furadan, FMC claim to be conducting their own investigations . This is not the first time that a human being has died from ingesting  deadly amounts of carbofuran, however it is the first time that it has gained media attention and a response from FMC in Kenya.

No reporting or under reporting of pesticide poisoning suggest this is probably not an isolated case

According to our sources in Uganda, a young man died in Uganda after ingesting Furadan last year. Although reported to FMC, we are told that FMC apparently have not responded to that incident. In the case of Kimutai the story reached the media because of a coincidence - the father knew a journalist who happened to be aware of the campaign to ban carbofuran in Kenya. Kimutai’s father told me that he fears that thousands of others may have been affected and have simply not reported the incidents. In rural Kenya autopsies are not conducted - and so the evidence trail ends.

A report compiled by the international crop research institute ICIPE states that 97.5% of Kenyan green bean farmers use pesticides and all are purchased in AgroVet stores.  The ICIPE report also claims that

“A fairly high proportion (about 21%) of farmers reported having visited clinics for treatment for maladies related to pesticide usage.” 

With such a high rates of maladies associated with pesticides one would expect the regulations to be stringently enforced. They are not. Kimutai was buried without an autopsy being conducted and according to his father, no record of the pesticide poisoning was forwarded to higher government offices. It seems that Kimutai represents an incident that never got recorded even as a statistic, even FMC cannot be sure that he died of Furadan poisoning. There were no tests, no documentation and apparently no death certificate. We agree with his father believes that this lack of reporting may be concealing a serious problem in farmlands across Kenya.

What does the Furadan label actually communicate?

 I have been asking people to read the Furadan label and tell me what it means

Two people have told me that it is a pest killer  for any form of pest from insects to rats to lions - this they know from recognizing the packaging and from previous experience. Two people thought it was a dusting powder for dogs against ticks - indeed the packaging for tick powder is in an identical container and may explain why Maasai herdsmen are trying to use Furadan on sheep. At half the price it’s a simple economic decision.

One person thought it was for malaria - the yellow square with x in side it is apparently a symbol used on malaria medicine.

None of the 5 people asked thought it was a deadly toxin. They associate a skull and cross bones with that.  None of the people I interviewed could explain what the six symbols in yellow at the bottom meant. Before I share with you recordings of farmers trying to explain - please send me your thoughts - what do you think the 7 symbols in yellow boxes at the bottom of the label mean?

Status of Furadan Buy-sback in Kenya 

We can also confirm that while the availability of Furadan  in Kenya is down, it is by no means gone from the Agrovet outlets. I personally visited several Agrovets in and around Nairobi and can confirm that it cannot be found anywhere near the headquarters of Juanco, the Kenyan distributor. Most Agrovets said they thought it has been banned by the government, however they admitted that it could be found in certain Nairobi stores, in major seed outlets and in up country Agrovets.

We have just received a report that it is available in Eldoret, a major agricultural town in central Kenya.  WildlifeDirect has been collaborating with FMC on reporting the presence of Furadan in Kenya but we remain dismayed at the lack of information regarding how much Furadan has been bought back, from where, where it has been taken or how it will be disposed. We have had no response to a series of emails to FMC on these issues. Our greatest fear is that tons of the product may have simply been moved to  border towns just outside of Kenya where we know the Agrovet stores are fully stocked with the deadly pesticide.

Ban Carbofuran in Kenya and Africa to save people and wildlife 

WildlifeDirect and other conservation organizations in Africa are proud to be associated with National Geographics Derek Joubert who says “We need to use whatever networks we’ve got, whatever political power we’ve got, to impose on FMC to pull this product out of Africa—that’s the bottom line.”

Tags: Africa, carbofuran, conservation, death, farming, furadan, Kenya, Lion, Lions, National Geographic, pesticide poisoning, pesticides, wildlife, wildlife poisoning, wildlifedirect

2 responses so far

Category: Africa, Poisoning wildlife, big cats, poaching, wildlifedirect | Date: Nov 10 2009 | By: paula

Dear all,

After the death of a child in Kenya from ingesting Furadan, and with the US Environmental Protection Agency banning carbofuran in America, we feel that there is no justification for delaying banning it in Kenya.

Watch this video and share with your friends. Please support our campaign to save lions.

Thank you

Tags: FMC, furadan, Kenya, KWS, Lion, lion poisoning, Lions, Paula Kahumbu, richard leakey, Tanzania, wildlife poisoning, wildlifedirect, wildlifepoisoning

12 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 06 2009 | By: paula

We have just received this video tape of birds being collected from the rice scheme in Bunyala after being poisoned allegedly with Furadan. The Kenyan  government officials of the Pesticide Products Control Board  have confirmed that THEY WILL NOT INVESTIGATE ANY OF OUR REPORTS which they state they believe we have fabricated.

Please watch the video and let us know if you think we could fabricate this.

Carbofuran is the same pesticide that is believed to be the cause of the massive decline in Africa’s lions. It is also being used in fishing in Lake Victoria. Reports of these incidents can be found on our poisoning blog http://stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org 

Although pesticide fishing and catching of birds for human consumption represents a public health hazard, the PCPB will not investigate. We will continue to furnish the government and other with the evidence.

Hopefully it won’t take a human death for them to wake up.

Tags: carbofuran, FMC, furadan, Lions, pesticide poisoning, poisoning birds, wildlife poisoning

3 responses so far

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

No responses yet

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

One response so far

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

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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

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