Category: findings | Date: Sep 30 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

Kenya’s National Parks Not Free From Wildlife Declines

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) - Long-term declines of elephants, giraffe, impala and other animals in Kenya are occurring at the same rates within the country’s national parks as outside of these protected areas, according to a new study.

“This is the first time we’ve taken a good look at a national park system in one country, relative to all of the wildlife populations across the whole country,” Read more..

Technorati : Drought, Elephant, National Parks, Poaching, Wildlife, wildlife decline

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Category: findings | Date: Sep 20 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

Yesterday I went to Kedong outside Tsavo West to witness another victim of the drought - a baby elephant being rescued. However, though calls were made to relevant authorities, no one turned up to help! This morning the sad news come, drought has claimed yet another life of an endangered species.

The weak and emaciated baby elephant found at Kedong outside Tsavo West NP

Community’s effort

The sad ending less than 10 hours later

Iregi Mwenja

Technorati : Kedong, Tsavo West, community, drought, elephant rescue

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Category: Bushmeat kenya | Date: Sep 17 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

The East African Wildife Society is implementing a conservation and alternative livelihoods project that is aimed at eliminating the growing illegal commercial bushmeat trade in Taveta. Bushmeat, popular known as ‘katia katia’ swahili for chops is commonly sold in villages by poachers who hunt in the nearby Tsavo West National Park and Ziwani Estate. Studies have shown that the problem is caused by two main drivers; poverty and food insecurity (lack of access to protein).

This EAWLS project has three strategies of fighting this menace;

• Alternative protein and livelihood promotion mainly fish farming and chicken production

• Capacity building for community CBOs through training and material and technical support

• Awareness raising using locally acceptable outreach strategies like drama, film shows and talks in schools

This week we are conducting a training workshop aimed at equipping the community with fish farming skill, small business enterprises management skills and organization capacity strengthening.

Iregi Mwenja

Project Manager

Technorati : Community workshop, Taveta, bushmeat, fish farming, poaching

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Category: Bushmeat kenya | Date: Sep 15 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

Yesterday marks a milestone for the Taveta Conservation and Alternative Livelihood project. After weeks of consultation, ponds rehabilitation, training and partnership building, the first two women groups received quality fingerlings to start their alternative protein and income project. Murunganyiko and Marekero women groups were the lucky beneficiary.

This project is building partnership with local community in an effort to eradicate the illegal bushmeat trade in Taveta. The project’s approach is to integrate awareness rising and generation of alternative livelihoods in order to reduce the consumption of bushmeat and ultimately eliminate poaching of wildlife for meat in and around Tsavo West National Park.

The quality fish fingerlings were sourced from Bamburi’s Haller Park hatchery. They breed mostly Tilapia for aquaculture and aquarium.

Despite spending 7 hours on the road driving alone from Mombasa to Taveta carrying this delicate cargo and spending a similar amount of time in the morning preparing for the travel and the community training workshop scheduled to start tomorrow, the grin of the face of the women who the received the fingerlings and immediately introduced them to their ponds took the fatigue away as I headed straight to my hotel at around 20:00hours for a meeting with Bidii youth group leaders who had been waiting for me since midday.

That was a day well spent:)

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Category: findings | Date: Sep 13 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

Jane Goodall Sees ‘Hope For Animals’

September 13, 2009

Sometimes, it seems like there’s no hope for the planet. Thousands of species go extinct every year, and climate change is closing in. But famed biologist Jane Goodall says she refuses to give up.

In her latest book, Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink, she writes, “There are surely plants and animals living in the remote places beyond our current knowledge. There are discoveries yet to be made.”

And, she says, there are species that have been pulled back from extinction by dedicated environmentalists.

The book is a collection of stories about those species and a celebration of the spirited efforts that saved them. Goodall tells Weekend All Things Considered Host Guy Raz that “if we think about only the downside of it, then we lose all hope, and then we are so discouraged that we don’t do anything.”

Goodall says one of the most important factors in saving a species is the emotional bond that develops between scientists and their subjects - like her attachment to the chimpanzees she studied in Tanzania.

“People I’ve talked with perhaps come from a discipline where it’s not considered scientific to have any kind of empathy with the animal you study,” Goodall says. “You’re supposed to be cold and scientific. But … we do have a personal connection with these creatures, and we do this work because we love it, and because we just couldn’t bear to let them vanish.”Read more

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Category: Bushmeat kenya | Date: Sep 13 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

By Dauti Kahura

This year is tough for wildlife. Thousands have died from hunger and thirst due to drought while others play hide and seek to avoid humans who hunt them for food.

Even baboons, monkeys and chimps that once were common along major highways have taken cover.

Conservationists say besides drought, the rapid growth in wildlife meat trade is the other danger facing wildlife.

The growth, they say, is buoyed by the ‘free resource’; hunger and perceptions bush meat is tastier.

“It has now become an informal industry founded on what is regarded as a free resource,” says a biologist, Mr Iregi Mwenja.

He says recent media reports that Nairobi is the hub of game meat and consumption are .. Read More

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Category: findings | Date: Sep 11 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

DNA barcodes, a new tool for tracking illegal wildlife trade

By John Platt in 60-Second Extinction Countdown

The illegal trade of bushmeat-meat and products made from wildlife-has grown dramatically in the past several years, thanks to high demand, enormous profits, a lack of law enforcement and minimal sentencing for criminals caught trafficking in bushmeat. The worldwide market for these illegal products reached an estimated $5 billion to $8 billion in 2008.

One of the major challenges in combating the bushmeat trade is identifying the source species for the meat and products…. Read more

Technorati : Bushmeat, Bushmeat trade, DNA barcoding, Poaching

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Category: findings | Date: Sep 06 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

For East Africans reading this article on bushmeat from Ghana, be warned! The bushmeat situation in East Africa is different from West Africa. The drivers are different, the dynamic of the trade is different and the Laws on hunting are very different. For example, eating bushmeat is strongly founded on the West Africans cultures while in East Africa most culture did not allow eating of game meat (not anymore today). That is why bushmeat is a delicacy that only the rich can afford in urban centers in Ghana. In Kenya, bushmeat (not game meat!!) is mostly for the poor - those who cannot afford domestic meat. It is illegal and unscrupulous traders sell the meat through underground trade networks, posing a serious public health hazard to the unsuspecting consumers. In Ghana, you are able to buy bushmeat on the streets as you can see from the photos below (however, I didn’t buy);

Bushmeat sellers on the roadside on Accra-Mankessim road. I am holding two Cane rats worth about $ 40!! No Kenya would pay even $5 for that!

Smoking the cane rat, ‘akrantie’

Ghana: We Love Bush Meat

Cephas 28 August 2009

Ghanaians spend over US$200 million annually on grass cutters, antelopes, bats, even monkeys! A story going round the sites of many websites on Ghana and which has hardly received any mention in the local Ghanaian media is about a Ghanaian culinary delight that unites Ghanaians. Read more

Technorati : Bush meat, Bushmeat trade, Ghana, Health risk, Poachers, hunting

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Category: findings | Date: Sep 06 2009 | By: bushmeateastafrica

TSAVO WEST NATIONAL PARK, Kenya - Kenya’s persistent and bruising drought is having a serious impact on the country’s wildlife, one of its main tourist attractions, obliging the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to feed hippos to keep them alive. Read more

My picture on this story taken on 26th August, 2009

The emaciated hippos lying in a shallow pool on Tsavo river.

I hope the feeding by KWS will see these animals through the drought. Tsavo West looks really bad with most elephant having migrate to Taveta near L. Jipe and Ziwani where they are causing enormous damage to the local agricultural economy.

The hippos are uncharacteristically laying 1 metre from the busy road. they done seem bothered by the vehicles passing.

The dry Tsavo river on the other side of the road

Technorati : Drought, Hippos, Tsavo West

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