Furadan in the USA

Linkhttp://www.news-leader.com

A recent story out of the state of Missouri caught my eye because it involved the prosecution and sentencing of a man from Raymondville for using Furadan (Carbofuran) to kill wildlife. The story appeared on Nov 3rd & 4th in the on-line newspaper the Springfield News-Leader, which you can find here.

I have posted in Furadan a few times before, all to do with African wildlife, and in doing so was under the mistaken belief that the stuff was banned in North America. In Africa it has been used to deliberately kill lions and to capture huge numbers of birds. You can read about that in the blogs of March 15 & 30, May 29 and June 13 & 18.

This case is interesting because the culprit, one Eric Bryant, carried out the offense in January this year. He had treated some deer meat with the poison in an effort to control coyotes. In six weeks had killed at least three domestic dogs, several coyotes, a gray fox, a skunk, a red-tailed hawk and three American crows. These creatures were found by federal agents, and there is of course no way of knowing how many other animals perished.

My own yellow lab, Caesar, would be just as susceptible as any other dog, maybe even more so given his breed's tendency to eat anything he finds.

This just goes to show that the poison can kill a wide range of species. It acts by disrupting nerve conduction. The stuff is highly toxic to humans, and as little as a quarter tea-spoon can be fatal.

Because it is such an effective pesticide, and kills insects on contact, it is much favoured by crop producers. Farmers who apply it must do so in closed systems and one wonders how much risk the drivers of modern tractors, with their efficient air conditioners, are running. Can Furadan in a mist be brought back into the cab and create a hazard for the driver?

Guard Dogs and penguins

Another encouraging story about guard dogs and wildlife, once more reaching me through the Wildlife Disease Network a blog I regularly scan here. In this case the protected animals are about as far from what one might imagine as possible. They are fairy penguins! These are the smallest penguins on earth, and nest in burrows close to shore. They are also known as little penguins, but the fairy name is more attractive, at least to me.

In an intriguing report from Australia published on-line in the Earth Times of Jan 5th that you can find here comes this report. For those who want a précis here is mine.

Guard dogs, in this case Maremmas sheep dogs from Italy, that bond to their charges just like the Anatolian and Pyrenees that I mentioned a few days ago on this blog, have been introduced to a small south-coast Australian island called Middle Island. The results have been very positive, and the population of penguins, which had declined (crashed?) from an original 5000 to 100 four years ago has crept back up to 180. Twenty-six chicks were counted in one night according to project manager Ian Fitzgibbons.

There are no pictures of either the penguins or the dogs in the report, so I have gone looking for them on the web and found a picture of the attractive dogs at here. They look very much like the Pyrenneans.




As for the penguins, here is what I found. The first one came straight form Google. The second picture (found here) looks very much like the ones we tried to take in Australia a few years ago. I fancy that the photographer was allowed to go much closer to the birds than we were, as ordinary tourists.

Anatolian Guard Dogs - follow-up

As I composed my previous blog about guard dogs and cheetahs in Namibia, and their presence in Kenya, I wrote an email to the folks at the Kilimanjaro Lion Projectto see if they had any news on this front. Amy Howard has just replied, and the answer is yes.

In a nice blog (which you can find here) titled None-lethal Predator Control veterinarian Asuka Takita has written about the program in Kenya’s Masai Mara.

I have lifted two of her pictures, as they nicely show the relationship between the dog and the livestock, and make the important visual point that the dogs need to be bonded with the stock as pups.

One quote says most of what matters

"In Namibia, ancient breed of Turkish livestock guardian dog, Anatolian Shepherd Dog, has been used since 1994 to reduce cheetah-livestock conflict by Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), defending livestock against baboons, jackals, caracals, cheetahs, leopards and even humans."

Good luck to all involved, from Asuka to all at the Kilimanjaro project, to the herders, who have so much at stake. Have a look at Asuka's blog