A chronicling of long-standing carbofuran use and its menace to wildlife in Kenya - Carbofuran and Wildlife Poisoning: Global Perspectives and Forensic Approaches - page 71

commercial ranchers, and chronic problem lions are typically hunted and killed. Lions and hyenas
are nocturnal, especially where persecuted by man, and when they kill a large animal, they return to
fi nish it the following night.
In Laikipia District, commercial ranchers normally remove problem lions by 'sitting up' over a
cow carcass killed by lions and shooting the animal which returns to feed. Traditionally, Maasai pas-
toralists dealt with lions by spearing, either in Olkiyoi, retaliation for a specifi c depredation in which
any men may participate, or in Olamayio , a traditional ritual of young warriors ( murran) associated
with entering manhood (Hazzah, Borgerhoff Mulder and Frank 2009) that gains the successful war-
rior lifelong prestige. These methods require effort and skill, and often entail considerable personal
risk. In social species such as lions and spotted hyenas, the individual specifi cally responsible for
depredation is usually diffi cult to determine, but shooting or spearing tend to be specifi c and usually
target the group of animals that made the kill (Woodroffe and Frank 2005).
3.4.2 Use of poison to kill carnivores in Kenya
Although there is no prestige associated with its use, poisoning a carcass is a risk-free and effi cient
method for removing predators. Lions are among the easiest to poison because they are consider-
ably less wary and elusive than leopards or hyenas (Hazzah 2006; Hazzah, Borgerhoff Mulder and
Frank 2009). In the twentieth century, both strychnine and toxaphene (an organochlorine used for
'dipping' cattle to prevent tick-borne diseases) were widely available and used for killing predators
(Denney 1972). When strychnine was better controlled and toxaphene was replaced by acaricides
with low toxicity to mammals, pastoralists discovered that carbofuran (sold as Furadan 5G) was
highly effective for killing predators, very cheap, and universally available in Kenya: one could
go into most agrovet in any small town, ask for something to kill predators or feral dogs, and be
sold a jar of Furadan granules for 120 to 150 Kenya shillings (1.50 to 2.00 USD). Conservationists
started reporting increasing numbers of predator poisoning incidents around the turn of the current
century, accompanied by a decline in lion observations outside protected areas (Frank, in press).
As described in Section 3.5, incidental mortality of vultures and scavenging eagles was enormous,
and as a result, some species of vultures have virtually disappeared from Kenya, while others have
become rare.
In response to adverse publicity in the United States, FMC Corporation withdrew Furadan from
Kenya in 2009 and attempted to buy back remaining stocks from shops; there have been fewer
reports of predator poisoning subsequently. However, carbofuran remains readily available in neigh-
bouring countries and lions in Kenya continue to be poisoned with carbofururan bought in Tanzania;
the most recent episodes were reported in January 2011 (further discussed in Section 3.4.3).
3.4.3 Methods used to assess repercussions to scavenging mammals
Records of predator poisoning in the African bush are inevitably incomplete. These events occur in
the remote areas where predators still occur, and as they are illegal, the perpetrators keep them secret.
Few carcasses are found by conservation authorities or NGOs, there is no formal reporting or central
record keeping system, and communication between conservation groups is often minimal. Given
the rapid rate of decomposition in the tropics, it is rare for trained personnel to fi nd carcasses before
they are decomposed and eaten by scavengers, and freezers for storing tissue or gut content sam-
ples are not often available in the fi eld. Kenya's Pest Control Products Board (PCPB) has appeared
reluctant to accept evidence of predator poisoning, and since use of Furadan to poison lions became
controversial following the US publicity, the one laboratory in Kenya capable of analysing for car-
bofuran metabolites refuses to accept wildlife material.