• August 2008 – Elephant repellent test
On average 10.000 people per year die or get seriously injured because of conflicts with wild roaming Elephants. In Kenya alone 70 people perish each year during nightly raids of the grey animals, not to mention the amount of injured and killed Elephants.
For years now all kind of defense mechanisms have been tested to protect man from animal en vice versa. Many skilled professional has made a study to solute this problem but to no reveal. Most of the suggested solution are either economically not feasible or pose a threat to both Elephant and man.
WLCI scientists and field workers are also being confronted with angry farmers and injured Elephants on a daily base, we decided to draw a line and use our knowledge of Elephants to protect them in a different way than what had be done so far.
The month of August (winter in Kenya) is a month of migrating Elephants in search of water and food, food most often found on small shambas of farmers and small communities. Four WLCI members took up the task and faced the Elephants to test a new repellent. The repellent itself is mainly based on natural ingredients and poses no harm to flora and fauna and will as expected only chase away Elephants and if desired probably other species as well.
If this repellent works many lives will be saved, both animal and man. Of course we have to test this in the field many times and we’re sure that some changes have to be made before we have a practical solution that can be used in the bush by rangers and government in Elephant problem areas.
First test with our new Elephant repellent is a fact
Multiple tests have been conducted in and around Kenyas largest national park, Tsavo. This park, famous due to movies based on the book “man eaters of Tsavo”and “The Ghost and the Darkness”both picturing the man eating lions, is home to aprox. 11.500 Elephants. In this area alone 20 to 40 people lose their lives as a result of human/wildlife conflict situations.
In the preliminary stage of the test we allocated small groups of Elephants, this of course together with KWS our long time partner in animal protection. Our focus was on safety first since we didn’t know what the reaction of the Elephants would be once confronted with the discomfort of the powder. We always keep in mind that both animal and community have to be safe under any circumstances. The weapon of choice has a effective range of 90 yards, this meant caution when approaching the Elephants. First we wanted to know whether the powder would have any effect at all, so we decided to shoot 15 powder pellets into the first group of Elephants. The result was obvious, the whole group immediately took off, straight into the park.
These first shots promised a good result and with great expectation we planned the next steps together with KWS. The following days it almost seemed as if the Elephants received a memo telling them to stay away or watch out for us. Even in the most raided areas they stayed way out of sight. All we found for the next 6 or 7 days was Elephant dung, proof that they’ve beaten us to it.
For weeks we left our base camp, Satao, every morning somewhere between 04:00 and 05:00 to team up with the rest of the team at KWS HQ in Voi. On most days we left with 2 cars, 6 rangers, 1 biologist and 2 WLCI members. Just before take-off we reviewed the reports that came in during the night from the rest of the human/wildlife conflict team to determine which area to visit.
During these weeks we persuaded several groups of Elephants to find their food elsewhere. On most occasions we found a very angry Matriarch opposite our pellet gun. In 2 cases we came very close to find ourselves on the wrong end of a argument.
Wrapping it all up….
As predicted, the active ingredients seemed to work. It was just that the amount of ingredients we’ve added later on turned out to be to low. We had to work with a standard size pellet or ball the size of a paintball round. With some sort of vacuum machine we took out some stuff and added some other ingredients. It was all too little, too soft.
This also resulted in irritation instead of a strong repelling effect. To test another way of launching the powder, Linda, one of our co-workers, prepared a hand granate with a lot of active ingredient. This was a one time test since the powder set the savannah on fire straight away.
Next step will be to prepare larger balls with more different active ingredients and in larger quantities.
More on this item soon
- Edited by Wildlife-man on 07.10.2009, 16:05 -
