Kenya: Report Alleges Roaring Trade in Game Meat

The Nation (Nairobi)

November 17, 2006
Posted to the web November 17, 2006

Pascal Mwandambo
Nairobi

The increase in consumption of game meat might lead to the extinction of some wildlife species in Tsavo, conservationists have warned.

Among the animals threatened with extinction are the dik dik and antelopes, a report titled "Wildlife Utilisation in Taita Taveta: A case study in the district rangelands," says.

The report prepared by Mr Raymond Mnene of Taita Taveta Wildlife Forum, says that already 96 per cent of dik diks outside protected areas have been wiped out.

"Rapid increase in population, high poverty levels and exclusionist conservation policies are responsible for the increased poaching of game," the report says.

It points out that skewed distribution of resources, where communities neighbouring the parks are deprived of basic survival means have resulted in increased consumption of bush meat and its attendant risks.

"Traditionally, Taita communities knew how to maintain the wildlife populations while certain animal species were never killed by the hunters. However the introduction of stringent measures to curb poaching have led to massive poaching (of animals) for consumption," the report says.

The study revealed that the increase in bush meat consumption had dealt a major blow to owners of butcheries, especially in Voi and Taveta.

"I cannot ascertain the extent of the threat to my business by bush meat trade but there are reasons to fear since the bush meat traders are targeting the same customers," a butchery owner in Voi said.

Another one said he used to sell up to three carcasses of goat every day three years ago but now sells only one.

The report accuses Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) of lacking the goodwill, personnel and resources to stamp out illicit business in bush meat especially outside the protected areas and in the ranches.

The report, was among proposals handed over to top conservationists from KWS and the East African Wildlife Service, who were in Voi to receive memoranda on how people near parks can benefit from wildlife resources.

Create Village wildlife Managmeent areas in the buffer zones of protected areas. Then re-introduce controlled tourist hunting under the auspices of the local councils and under the authority and control of KWS. Set sustainable hunting quotas based on scientific methods of quota allocations taking into account local populations of breeding herds. For every aniaml shot, a royalty goes to the village council. Keep it transparent. Force the hunting operators to comply with a set of conditions such as antipoaching, community development and maintenance fo infrstructure such as roads, airstrips, etc. By doing so, you are giving wildlife a value for the local communities and an incentive to protect them. The KWS is over-burdened with policing within the boundaries of gazetted protected areas. It can´t be expected to control and monitor dispersal areas as well.....

Unfortunately I don't see how that will protect the dik-diks. They don't have much value in hunting concessions!

Seriously, I am sure that KWS are overburdened but there's a whole can of worms here, even if you agree with hunting (which as a sport I just can't see as different in anything but degree from psychopathy) using it as a catch-all solution everywhere in Africa where there are problems seems to me to be lazy economics. Demand and therefore prices are currently high because supply is very limited. If you increase supply too much the economics on which the solution is based will probably not work any more in the medium-term and we end up back where we are today but with ever more undisciplined "I want a lion guaranteed or I'm going to South Africa" hunting operators to add to the mix of problems to deal with (Zambia appears to have some issues with this. I could be wrong but it seems to me that such a solution is only a band-aid.

I also wonder whether, considering Kenya's chronic problems with corruption and lack of real government control, the kind of strict 'quota allocations' you talk of would be able to be enforced. And without them, you know permitting hunting isn't going to be good for the wildlife.

Just a thought. Shoot me down and enlighten me.

I second kimburus statement.

The poaching in this case is a form of hunting that I can understand because it is done for food not satisfaction of ego. These people are broke and hungry, that is why they hunt. If you give a concession to hunting operators and ask them to support the construction of air strips, who is going to benefit? It will make the hunting business more lucrative but the locals will still be starving. Those few bread crumbs that will fall off the table for the locals will not be enough and hence they will allow a couple of extra kills to compensate for the loss of not being able to poach anymore. I honestly don´t believe the local council will be able to control the quotas provided by KWS and KWS as you said yourself, will not be able to control what is going on.

Sorry, but this looks like the wrong approach to me.

And, provided your plan would work with hunting safaris, why shouldn´t it work with photo safaris? Please don´t tell me because the land is not suitable for photographic safaris. If it can be made suitable for hunting by building air strips and roads, it can also be done for photographic safaris.

Carsten:

The bush meat trade is no longer a man setting traps to feed his family. If it were only that you wouldn't be seeing such drastic reduction in the species. It is now a huge commercial business, the meat is even being used for dog food!!! I'll append Daphne Sheldrick's explanation below. She now has seven desnaring teams in Tsavo who have lifted many snares and saved those animals still alive. Indeed last year they found five giraffe, dead, hanging by their necks in Tsavo West. You can go to
www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org and click on desnaring teams to learn more about it.

______________________________________________________________________
THE DE-SNARING PROJECT

Since April 1999, the David Sheldrick Trust has been involved in operating and funding several highly successful de-snaring teams who continually work what sensitive boundaries can be covered of the giant Tsavo National Park, often finding it necessary to penetrate deep inside the Park itself in pursuit of illegal bush-meat activities. Our de-snaring operations are undertaken with the close cooperation of the wildlife authority, (the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). Our teams are accompanied by armed KWS Rangers at all times, who have powers of arrest.

US Trustees inspect snares and recovered wares
photo taken on 10/1/06 (ITHUMBA TEAM) The Somali herdsmans camp
photo taken on 10/1/06 (ZIWANI TEAM)

Currently we have been able to mobilize 5 fulltime de-snaring teams, all headed by University Graduate Team Leaders endowed with the necessary dedication and passion for wildlife to be able to make a difference. Together these exceptional young men have kept their teams fully motivated and have also been responsible for sensitizing communities bordering the Park within their specific areas of operation, thereby making a positive two-fold contribution to wildlife conservation. Theirs is a crucial holding action until the bush-meat crisis can be adequately addressed through stiffer court penalties and legislation enacted that again outlaws the possession of game meat. The snaring of wild animals, which was once practiced only at a subsistence level, is now commercial big business which is unsustainable and threatens the very existence of many species. Recent surveys show that wildlife has decreased by as much as 60% since l990 when the legal culling of wild game was allowed on a quota system within privately owned ranches. We appeal for financial support for our de-snaring efforts in order to alleviate suffering and cruelty on an immense scale, combined with intense lobbying of the Government to instil deterrent jail terms for offenders. Unless the bush-meat crisis is addressed, this insidious form of poaching will bring down Kenya’s lucrative tourist industry and annihilate its irreplaceable wildlife heritage.

Snaring is a very ancient method of hunting, whereby wire nooses are set on game trails leading to water, high up in trees to trap giraffe, around communal middens or dung-piles to target territorial antelopes such as dikdik and in freshly burnt grasslands where fresh green shoots attract large numbers of herbivores. Sometimes extended brush fences are created to funnel animals into gaps riddled with snares, where they are trapped in large numbers. Snares are made of metal wires, often taken from burst tyres found on main roads, from abandoned telephone lines, fashioned also from nylon fishing line or rope, vegetable fibres, and for the larger species, steel winch cables. These cruel devices are non-selective in that a wire snare set for a small antelope can cause the slow and agonizing death of an elephant as the noose tightens and cuts deeper and deeper into a limb or trunk, sometimes severing it entirely. 1000 snares at a 5% daily rate of success (which is what a poacher expects) will catch l8,250 animals in a year and it is not uncommon for our teams to lift l000 snares in just a couple of days. Today bush-meat is sold widely not only in local butcheries, but regionally further afield in African countries that have already eliminated their wildlife. These include Central, West and North Africa, as well as the Middle East where the demand is great, and it is even on sale internationally, smuggled into European capitals such as London, Brussels and Paris where there are large African immigrant communities.

Video show at Maktau Secondary School
photo taken on 10/1/06 (ZIWANI TEAM) 178 snares lifted in one day
photo taken on 10/1/06 (ITHUMBA TEAM)

The snaring of wild animals has always been a concern to wildlife Wardens, but only recently, since l990 when the legal culling of game was allowed on privately owned ranches, has the commercial element crept in and escalated to alarming proportions. Huge meat camps resembling commercial abattoirs have been found deep inside the Park with scores of carcases in the process of being butchered and transported to market, sometimes in donkey carts. Field Reports from our de-snaring units indicate that our activities have had a positive impact along the boundaries we can cover, thereby saving the lives of literally hundreds of animals and alleviating unspeakable suffering on a massive scale. Our mobile Veterinary Unit working in conjunction with the de-snaring teams has also been very successful in helping remove snares from wounded animals spotted in the Park. This Veterinary Unit covers both Tsavo East and West, Amboseli and the Shimba Hills National Parks, as well as the neighbouring ranches and is funded by the Austrian NGO Vier Pfoten.

Each de-snaring team is fully mobile. Equipped with four wheel drive vehicles and camping equipment they are on patrol for weeks at a time and have lifted thousands of snares monthly, keeping up the pressure by revisiting the hot-spots.

An informer displays how to get water from holes
photo taken on 10/1/06 (ITHUMBA TEAM) Getting water from holes in the rock outcrop
photo taken on 10/1/06 (ITHUMBA TEAM)

The Tsavo National Park is the Trust’s main priority area, for the name Sheldrick and Tsavo are synonymous, the late David Sheldrick being responsible for its development from virgin uncharted scrubland bush. 20,000 sq. kilometres (8,069 sq. miles) in extent, the Tsavo National Park was gazetted in 1948 and is Kenya’s largest Protected Area, offering the best long-term hope for the survival of a greater number of species than any other Park in the world for here, by fortunate accident, the Northern and Southern forms of fauna just happen to meet, doubling up on species such as Giraffe, Ostrich, and Grant gazelles. Because it is marginal tsetse infested land, easily reduced to desert and unsuitable for domestic stock, of low and erratic rainfall, and also unsuitable for agriculture, there is no better form of land use for the area than under wildlife – another reason why Tsavo is more likely to endure than other more fertile areas in a country where a galloping human population is making increasing demands on the land.

The community component of our de-snaring operations is equally as vital to the success of the project as the de-snaring operations themselves. Our Team Leaders regularly visit villages bordering the Park boundaries, spearheading conservation related projects, initiating tree planting projects, lecturing on conservation issues, holding environmental film shows and generally encouraging the goodwill and active cooperation of the community. Wildlife Clubs have been organised and student field trips undertaken into the Park on a regular basis, whilst stationery, text books relevant to the local school curriculum and sporting equipment is donated to the schools the Trust supports along several of the Park boundaries. The community input has born fruit and resulted in curbing a great deal of illegal poaching. Orphaned animals are nurtured and handed into our care, whereas before they would simply have been killed and eaten.

Jan, I didn't necesarily mean the direct consumption of the bush-meat by the poachers themselves but more the fact that these people have very little money. I am not sure, but I doubt they make a lot of money on their "catch". The money is made further down the line.

Anyhow, I don´t see why air strips should help the local community and this "help" should then make the community protect wildlife. Maybe our guest poster is prepared to enlighten me on this.

So far the only difference I see is that professional hunters will selectivly kill animals which might be less damage on the whole stock than poaching. It still seems to me as if it would take the situation from terrible to bad, but not good.

Hope to hear more from our guest.