Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
while the carcasses are still fresh, and evidence in the form of granules or piles of dead fl ies on the
bait are still visible. Because scouts and rangers are not trained in toxicology, stomach content and
tissue samples are rarely taken.
Although few samples have been analysed, the people doing the poisoning readily describe using
Furadan, and agrovets are familiar with this use for it. As strychnine and highly toxic acaricides
are no longer available, there is no other readily accessible poison. Although defi nitive and reliable
laboratory analyses are available for relatively few carnivore poisoning cases from Kenya, there is
overwhelming anecdotal evidence that carbofuran has been used, and continues to be used, to elimi-
nate predators in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.
3.4.5 Discussion
Extinction of wildlife is ultimately due to failure of conservation policy and action. Loss of Kenya's
wildlife is especially tragic in view of the fact that wildlife tourism has long been one of the most
important pillars of the national economy. Lions are the single most important species that attract
foreign visitors with their dollars, euros and yen, and their elimination would almost certainly have
a major negative impact on tourism.
Although conservation resources are inevitably limited in developing countries, much of the
responsibility for the decline in wildlife lies in national policy that denies signifi cant income from
wildlife tourism to the rural people who bear the costs of living with wildlife (Norton-Griffi ths
2007). Disease and drought are much more important causes of livestock loss (Frank 1996), but
predators are seen as an immediate threat that herders can control (Hazzah, Borgerhoff Mulder
and Frank 2009). As long as lions and other wildlife are no more than an expensive nuisance, it is
hardly surprising that people eat what is edible and poison the rest. Without a reversal in policy that
makes wildlife a valuable economic resource for Africa's pastoralists, it will continue to decline.
Until African governments take wildlife resources far more seriously, there is little chance of an
improvement in the outlook for wild animals and their habitats. In the meantime the only feasible
way to prevent abuse of pesticides for poisoning wildlife is for governments to ban importation and
manufacture of highly toxic compounds such as carbofuran. Since the pesticide industry claims that
there is little legal evidence that carbofuran is used to poison wildlife (i.e., the 'innocent until proven
guilty' defense), we need a concerted effort to analyse samples recovered from carcasses to confi rm
the identity of the compound(s) used to poison wildlife.
3.5 Threats of secondary Furadan poisoning to scavengers,
especially vultures, in Kenya
Darcy Ogada
1, 2
1
The Peregrine Fund, 5668 West Flying Hawk Lane, Boise, Idaho 83709, USA
2
Ornithology Section, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658-00100,
Nairobi, Kenya
3.5.1 Misuse of Furadan to control farm pests
In Africa, owls are culturally taboo. People believe, for example, that the sight or sound of an owl
brings bad luck in the form of death or illness in one's family. Ogada and Kibuthu (2008) provided
an account of the knowledge and perceptions of farmers regarding eagle owls in Central Kenya. Given
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