Born Free

Category: Born Free | Date: Jan 27 2009 | By: bornfree

Thank you so much for your donation for the projects on the Born Free blog!!  Your support and of course donations are so important to all the projects and to keeping wildlife in the wild in Africa.

We’ll be back with more blogs very soon!!

All the best,

Andrina

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Category: Lilongwe Wildlife Centre | Date: Jan 15 2009 | By: bornfree

Happy New Year everyone!!

Well we have had an exciting and busy time this last month. We are proud to announce that we had our first official release of animals that we have rescued and rehabilitated. It was an exciting and emotional day for all concerned.

After a year of planning and co-ordinating with National Parks of Malawi we found a suitable site in Kasungu National Park in central Malawi on Sunday 6th December, the Wildlife Centre rounded up Jack’s troop into their travel boxes.  The transfer up to Kasungu was in fact delayed by 24 hours, it appeared that Jack (the troop’s alpha male) was not so happy about the whole move and refused to come into the holding area where he could be darted and sedated.  He was however eventually darted and boxed up.  After just five hours on the road Jack’s troop was at the release site in Kasungu National Park, a beautiful spot along the river, where Jack and his family were transferred into a temporary holding area where they remained for a week to give them time to settle into their new environment.  The troop was now one step closer to freedom!

Then on Saturday 13th December, a team of us from the Wildlife Centre opened the gates and Jack and his family were released back to the wild. The final step that saw them returned home, free and wild. It was an emotional morning for the team,  watching the baboons take their first steps out of the gates of the holding area, especially for those who had cared for these animals and nursed some of them back to health, it was wonderful to see them free, chasing butterflies and climbing trees.

Our release research team headed up by Andrea will stay up at the park and track and check on the baboons for the next year. Three of the troop have been fitted with radio collars so tracking is easy.

Andrea is coming to town this week and will give us an update on how the baboons are doing….. keep watching this space!!

The release site where the baboons stayed for a week to acclimatise.

Tags: animal release, baboon, bushmeat, Lilongwe Wildlife Centre, Malawi, rehabilitation

3 responses so far

Category: Born Free Kenya | Date: Jan 12 2009 | By: bornfree

In the latter part of 2008, a marked increase in poaching had been seen within the southern part of Taita Ranch and Rukinga Ranch (whose anti-poaching work has been supported by Born Free Foundation), within the corridor between Tsavo East and West in South Eastern Kenya.  This increase indicated that poachers were actually residing in the bush in large numbers and that they were poaching on a large ‘commercial’ scale. 

Therefore, in November 2008, a co-ordinated effort to remove these poachers was put into action.  Rangers and vehicles from Wildlife Works Ltd / Rukinga Ranch, KWS and ANAW carried out an operation, backed up by an aircraft provided by the Kenyan Wildlife Service, to find and arrest the poachers.  Several large and well established charcoaling and poaching camps were identified and raided simultaneously during the operation.  Bicycles and shoes were discarded as the poachers ran to try and escape arrest showing how established the camps had been.

During the raids 11 people were arrested and dozens of carcasses including dik diks, impala and kudu confiscated, several which were found drying in a tree – the meat is sold but the heads are boiled up and eaten by the poachers. Snares, hunting torches, and bangi were also confiscated.  The meat which was confiscated in the raid would have been transported on charcoal lorries to small towns or villages along the Mombasa Road where it would have been sold in small ‘informal butcheries’ and drinking dens.

Some of the largest charcoal kilns ever seen were also found on Kambanga Ranch - literally thousands of trees had been cut in the last months of 2008. 

Rob Dodson of Wildlife Works Ltd. / Rukinga Ranch met with the Directors of Kambanga Ranch directors, showing them the pictures resulting from the raid.  They were quite shocked at the extent of the problem that they have and an offer has been made that should the Ranch Directors be able to pay and equip a couple of rangers, then Wildlife Works will co-ordinate them to work within the network under their management.

Special thanks go to Isaac Maina and his team from ANAW and to the KWS who provided excellent back up to the rangers.

Rob explains to Born Free Foundation the issues that are facing Kenya’s wildlife and environment in the light of the current global economic downturn:

“Last year was a seriously bad year for conservation all over Kenya, for quite a few reasons. The year started badly with chaos and violence after the election fiasco and then continued to get harder as the ’short rains’ failed and the world economic slow-down halted new investment and development funding. It’s been hard enough for people in the ‘developed world’ to make ends meet lately; for people here, it’s been impossible.

With the tourism industry in ruins and food and fuel prices nearly doubled, those people (and there are millions here) who tread the fine line between surviving and not, have had to find a way of subsidising their existence. In an area like Tsavo, the bush is expected to provide, be it from the meat of the animals or charcoal made from the trees; it’s basically a return to our hunting and gathering beginnings as a race of people.

But this dry and fragile environment cannot sustain this sudden onslaught, and left unchecked, the land might well be left barren and shattered, unable to produce food crops and now unable to sustain eco-tourism or other conservation projects. Even in these most difficult of times, it is absolutely essential that we protect our wildlife and natural ecosystems, because they are our future and they are our most precious natural resource. Kenya doesn’t have gold or oil or coal or sands full of diamonds and our unreliable dry equatorial climate will never produce an abundance of food even in a good year. But what we do have is incredible wildlife, this is our natural resource and this we must protect.”

For more information on the projects Born Free Foundation supports, please visit www.bornfree.org.uk.

Tags: bushmeat, charcoal, Kenya, KWS, poaching, Wildlife Works Ltd

2 responses so far

Category: Born Free | Date: Jan 12 2009 | By: bornfree

Many thanks to Eileen H for the $60 donated to Born Free Wildlife Direct projects!!

Don’t forget that you can sign up to receive Born Free’s Wildlife Direct blog via email - just put your email in the box at the totp of this page and you will receive each blog produced (and no spam!).

Thank you, Born Free 

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Category: Lilongwe Wildlife Centre | Date: Jan 05 2009 | By: bornfree

We wanted to give you an update on the olive baboons that were recently rescued from Israel and brought to the Wildlife Centre – all eight of them! 

The three females, Jill, Pamela, and Dickler and the five males, Nave, Jack, Nutty, Mayan, and Meir are all doing well.  The majority of the baboons are adults, but that does not stop them from running around like youngsters, says their carer, Yesaya.

The baboons’ favorite meal is fruit salad.  Each morning the animal carers chop up bananas and papayas for the baboons to feast on, and they love when it is time to eat.

All of the olive baboons are still in the night room, with a release into their newly built enclosure planned next week.  Previously, not all of the baboons were together.  Jack, Jill, Nutty, Mayan, Meir and Pamela were all together, while Nave and Dickler remained separate.  Recently Nave and Dickler were introduced to the rest of the gang and all of the baboons are together and getting along well.

Stay tuned for an update to see how the baboons like their new enclosure! 

Please send your donations to our olive baboons to help keep them healthy and happy during their “retirement” years.

One response so far

Category: Born Free | Date: Jan 05 2009 | By: bornfree

Happy New Year to all blog readers!! 

Also, thank you so much to those who donated over the holiday period - a big thank you to Brenton H and Michele B!!

Make sure you visit “2009 - A reason to hope“, Born Free Foundation CEO Will Travers’ inspirational blog for the New Year.

All the best to you all for 2009!!

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