Deliberate crop spraying with Furadan kills birds

Link http://www.peopleandwildlife.org.uk/, http://wildlifedirect.org/blogsList.php, http//:stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org/, http://wdin.blogspot.com/

Another worrisome Furadan story comes this time from Mt. Kenya's eastern slopes. It is here, in the hot dry country of Tharaka district, where rainfall is limited, and one of the few crops that can be grown is millet, that a friend of our reports the death of hundreds of red-billed queleas.
These diminutive birds, only 13 cm (5 inches) long from beak to tail-tip would be no challenge on their own. When they flock in their hundreds, or even thousands, they can create havoc as crop-raiders. There are reports of large flocks almost blotting out the sun, just like locusts.

In Tharaka, these migratory birds turned up at just the wrong time and attacked, if that is the right word, the millet crop just as it was ripening. The solution?

Somebody called somebody, and the next thing was the sight of a helicopter flying over the crops spraying something. Soon after that birds started to die, and our friend even had birds drop out of the sky on to the table in front of him. Necropsies confirmed Furadan.

What will happen to the people who harvest the poison-laced millet is unknown. Maybe a copious washing with water will remove the Furadan. It had better, as the stuff is potent, half a teaspoon being enough to kill an adult human.

A Glasgow Vet in Africa: Furadan, birds, Kenya, lions and a new twist

A Glasgow Vet in Africa: Furadan, birds, Kenya, lions


Linkhttp://www.lionconservation.org/, http://www.peopleandwildlife.org.uk/, http://wildlifedirect.org/blogsList.php, http//:stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org/, http://wdin.blogspot.com/


A reader has asked a question on my blog of March 15th with the above title. Here is what I wrote in reply.

Thanks for your comment & interest. Out further west here in Saskatchewan we have just watched the same show on 60 minutes.

You are right, the herdsmen of Africa value their cattle very highly, and of course they are no different than a cattleman here in N. America. If a bear, wolf or cougar started to take out cattle the owner would be incensed. Witness the reaction of Wyoming ranchers after the wolves came from Canada a few years back.

As Laurence Frank said at the top of the show it is not just Kenya's lions that are in trouble. The opening paragraph of my book "The Trouble With Lions" read as follows:- "In 2005 veterinary students traveling with me in Uganda were horrified to learn that villagers in Queen Elizabeth National Park had poisoned two lions that they claimed had killed a cow. What the students learned first-hand was that the killing was merely that latest skirmish in one of the longest running wars on the planet." It is not just Kenya & Uganda. Anywhere in Africa where lions and other predators are a threat to livestock Furadan is a simple solution.

If you want to contribute towards compensation program for the Kenya situation, you can go directly to the web site of the Lion Conservation group at http://www.lionconservation.org/

As for the birds part of this, more tomorrow about crop pests & deliberate aereal poisoning.

Elephant attack on hippos

Link

During our recent trip to Uganda one of the veterinary students, Leighton Coma, took this movie of an attack by a big bull elephant on a hippo pod in the Kasinga Channel in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Watch carefully near the end of the clip as a small calf gets isolated to the elephants left. He turns and tries to spear it, but it escapes, to appear very briefly between the giant's legs before scooting off to join the group.

Water wars Mt. Kenya

Linkhttp://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.meruherbs.eu/&ei=0rTMSeTgOYnKtQPD5ty5Cg&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=10&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMeru%2BHerbs%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

I have read on many occasions that the next major war in Africa will be over water. We have just witnessed what may be an early skirmish in this regard.

Several rivers on Mt. Kenya that once used to feed the Uaso Nyiro have gone dry by the time they reach the Laikipia plains. Not surprisingly the ranchers and farmers who run livestock in the lower reaches are upset. Most assume that the water is being taken off higher up by people who tap into the resource for watering the numerous flower and vegetable growing operations on the mountain slopes. In fact some, often most, of the water is taken by riparian landowners needing water for their families or own stock. They usually do this illegally and without permits from the water board.

High up on the mountain slopes, at about 14,000 feet, two major rivers are being tapped in a novel fashion. Someone has employed gangs of labourers to dig trenches and lay pipes right at the springs. Here, the trench meets the stream about 100 metres below the spring. This photo shows a section of pipe in the new trench. Water that used to flow down the rivers has disappeared or has been reduced to the merest trickle. New landowners who have been sold plots that include irrigation in formerly dry areas now supplied by the stolen water are of course well satisfied. In one case government staff broke up the pipes and trenches, but there were repaired within days.

It looks very much as if the Kazita river, a major source for thousands of farmers in Meru district will be the next to be raided. I have fished the Kazita for trout on many occasions, and wonder what will happen.

It is not just these two rivers. The Kithino River, on Mt. Kenya’s western slopes, provides water to 1200 families in one well-run scheme in Tharaka District. The Meru Herbs project, funded initially through Italian initiatives, has well-developed markets in many European countries as well as Japan. If their water source dries up the scheme will collapse.

Book of the Year Award Nomination

Linkhttp://www.forewordmagazine.com/botya/

Exciting news. The Trouble With Lions has been nominated in the Travel Essays category by the New York-basedForeword Magazine. It is one of 15 finalists in this category, so there will be stiff competition, but hooray anyway. There were 668 books nominated in several categories.

Solar TV show in Uganda

Linkhttp://www.uwa.or.ug/about.html

Back in February I described the official opening of the new solar unit that we had donated to the little primary school at Kasenyi in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. Like a daft idiot I got so tied up in the show & the reaction of the children that I failed to take pictures of the event, other that the ribbon cutting by Dr. Jo Haigh & Dr. Margaret Driciru, who is in charge of research and monitoring in the park,. and was acting chief warden that day.
Here are some shots that i missed that day (taken by Jo). First, the gifts that we gave the children, an exercise book, pencil and teddy bear or other toy for the older children, then the speeches by various officials, first Margaret and then Wilson, the Community Conservation warden, then drinks and lunch for everyone who could be fitted into the classroom, and finally, the actual TV working.
All the staff, including Kiiza George, the headmaster, were delighted with the show, and if you take a close look at the last picture you will see that Jo pressed the shutter at exactly the right moment to show the head of a hippo. I had chosen to show a DVD about fisheries conservation and the importance of not killing hippos as they are the keystone species in the lakes of Africa's heartland. Wilson and Margaret are keen to get copies of the video, as it is a great example of the sort of thing that gives a powerful message for all.

Meru National Park and two rip-offs

Linkhttp://www.kws.org

It seems as if writing a blog has both its upbeat and downbeat moments. It is a bit like an orchestra conductor.
Here is the upbeat - a picture of the yellow-necked spurfowl that I failed to get up on my last effort.

After our visit to our favourite park in all of Africa here is what I wrote to the director of the Kenya Wildlife Service.


Kenya Wildlife Service,
Box 40241 Nairobi

Dear Sir,

I write after undergoing two rather unpleasant experiences in Meru National Park. I can sum them up as a double rip-off.

The first occurred when my wife and I reached the self-help bandas at Bwatherongi. At the park gate we had paid eighty dollars per night for booking a banda and assumed that they had been upgraded considerably from our last visit as one can get quite a reasonable (although not fancy) hotel for this sum in many parts of the world. My assumption was quite wrong. The banda was basic, very basic. Two plastic chairs, one of which was in need of extensive repair and unusable, a table and two beds. No electricity, nothing much else. Our most recent accommodation of a similar nature was in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park where the hostel charged us sixteen dollars each for bed and breakfast, and we did have electricity. Your fee was five times as much for half the quality.

As we prepared our meal the inevitable troop of baboons appeared, and it was soon evident that they were going to be a pest. We could not prepare our food unless one of us was on permanent duty with stones to throw, and even then the most forward of the monkeys was never more than twenty metres away. In the 1960s, when the self-help bandas were at Leopard Rock, a staff member armed with a slingshot of the type that David used to slay Goliath kept both vervets and baboons firmly at bay. All he had to do was twirl the thing a couple of times and the monkeys took off.

The second rip-off also occurred at the bandas, but was of quite a different nature. While we were out on an evening drive the baboons contrived to rip off part of the banda’s door frame, tear open the heavy-duty insect-proof netting and get into the room. There is no weld-mesh barriers behind the netting, so access was then easy. I will leave the state of the place to your imagination, but suffice it to say that the place smelt like what it had become, a lavatory. Almost all of our food was gone, and we dined on a tin of baked beans and two slices of bread that neighbouring visitors were kind enough to give us.

The park staff were extremely helpful as they appeared with brooms and mops and did their best to tidy up the mess, but as their own food stores had also been raided – in this case by a vervet monkey, they were in no position to help with food.

I paid my first visit to Meru Park in 1966 and have been there many times since, especially in the period 1967-1975 when I carried out veterinary duties on sick and injured rhino. Our visit there this year was precisely because we have such fond memories of the area. Our memories of 2009 are vivid, but not exactly fond.

KWS needs to deal with two things. They should not rip off visitors with over-inflated prices for very basic amenities, and they should deal with the baboons by either employing a “David” or taking more drastic action such as occurs in many other African parks.

I have sent a copy of this letter to the chief warden at Meru NP and to The Daily Nation, as I believe that the situation needs to be more widely known. I look forward to hearing about the action that you will take.

Yours sincerely,

Here are two pictures of baboons. The first taken with an 80 mm zoom lens at about 20 metres near the Meru bandas, the second in Kibale National park where these monkeys are as much a pest as anywhere else in Africa.