Born Free

Category: Lilongwe Wildlife Centre | Date: Feb 02 2009 | By: bornfree

You may remember one of our blogs about a small baby Impala (antelope), named Mitambo.  He was rescued by the Wildlife Centre after we were notified by the National Parks of Malawi that he had been injured.  Our vet, Wendy, went immediately to fetch him for treatment.

When Mitambo was brought to the centre his leg was badly injured.  There were two breaks in his right front leg, one even going through his skin.  Wendy worked hard to keep Mitambo alive with a cast that allowed access to his wounds for routine checks while slowly nursing him back to solids, but we are sad to report that Mitambo did not survive.

It is always nice to read about happy endings to our rescue stories – we love happy endings – but it is a reality that some animals will not survive.  We believe Mitambo’s leg was injured by a poacher’s trap and unfortunately poaching and the illegal pet trade are a significant problem in Malawi. 

The Wildlife Centre itself is a great place for the rescued animals, but the centre extends beyond that by educating visitors.  Children and adults learn about poaching, illegal pet trade, deforestation, and conservation while on tours of the centre.  We believe these problems can be combated through education.

Please send your donations to help our continuing efforts in educating the public about the dangers threatening wildlife on a daily basis.

Tags: impala, Lilongwe Wildlife Centre, Malawi, poaching

4 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: LAGA | Date: Dec 08 2008 | By: bornfree

On Saturday Felix found himself again alone in front of another ape arrest operation, with another chance to save a baby chimp.

Felix had to make all the planning for this operation alone – a very small rural town three hours from Yaounde. He had to discuss plans with the LAGA undercover agent, be shown how to use the recorder and choose a tactic for this sting operation. Our target was to arrest two main dealers in meat of protected species working regularly with several poachers and supplying the big towns, and of course, save a baby one year old chimp. The biggest challenge was fighting corruption – in this small town the state attorney, police, Ministry personnel… and criminals – are all neighbors. This makes the usual bribing attempts much easier. Felix held back the information from the arresting team till the last moment to avoid information leak and was ready to fight any corruption attempt. The two dealers were successfully arrested in the act and the chimp, in a small cardboard box, was rescued. This time he managed to get the baby chimp to vet care on the same day and in the night the chimp arrived safely to CWAF organization.

But Felix stayed behind insuring that the two are behind bars over the weekend until the case is transmitted to court. He knew most chances the dealers will try to bribe their way out. Right after his last verification in the cell at 21:00, as Felix went to his motel satisfied, the Ministry official together with another government official went to the police station to illegally release the two dealers. Felix discovered it only early morning. Following the discovery LAGA put high pressure on the authorities to quickly reverse this act of corruption. And the state attorney responded by notifying the officials for the illegality of their late night maneuvers, and ordered for the re-arrest of the dealers and their stay behind bars for the coming week, till their trial begins. The investigation led to a third dealer beingg arrested over this trafficking affair.

This time Felix returned not only with the achievements of getting 3 dealers behind bars but also knowing he saved a baby chimp.

For more information or to donate, please visit LAGA’s webpage at http://www.laga-enforcement.org/  

Tags: bushmeat, chimpanzee, LAGA, poaching, wildlife trade

2 responses so far

Category: Sea Sense | Date: Jul 09 2008 | By: bornfree

I recently returned from a trip along the coast south of Tanzania’s capital Dar es Salaam. This stretch of coast is about 65km long and most is ideal turtle nesting habitat. We normally record about 100 green turtle here nests a year. Because it is so close to Dar es Salaam it is very disturbed and we are doing all that we can to minimize disturbance to nesting turtles and hatchlings from hotel development, fisher camps and illegal fishing activities, especially dynamiting. This is achieved mainly through education, public awareness and production of guidelines for tourism building (e.g. lights). While down there, we spent some time with the managers of two luxury hotels with whom we are promoting turtle tourism. We relocate some nests that are at risk from inundation to their beaches and in return we receive donations (modest unfortunately) from their guests. In this way, turtle protection in this area is becoming sustainable as these funds help pay for the community Conservation Officers as well as small nest incentives that are paid out when a turtle nest is reported.

Our main problem at the moment is nest predation by mongooses and red ants. The latter attack the young turtles as they come out of the eggs deep in the sand. We are minimizing the risk from mongooses by surrounding the nests with chicken wire and covering them with fishing net (this is removed a few days before hatching). For the red ants, we are trying a variety of things such as placing cold ash at the bottom and top of the nest.

Next week we are back off to the south coast to do some training with hotel staff. We have 4 University of Dar es Salaam undergraduates with Sea Sense for the next 2 months and they will be helping us with the training and with protecting turtle nests.

More next week!

Tags: illegal fishing, poaching, protection, Sea Sense, Tanzania, turtles

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Category: Sea Sense | Date: Jul 02 2008 | By: bornfree

I am Catharine Muir, Director of Sea Sense, a Tanzanian community-based NGO that I set up in 2001. Sea Sense helps to protect endangered marine life including turtles and dugongs with a view to improving the lives of local people and protecting biodiversity. My job is essentially to coordinate our dedicated team which is comprised of 3 in the office and a network of 65 local Conservation Officers who collect data and raise awareness along the coast.

 The kinds of activities Sea Sense is involved in include: protecting nesting turtles and their eggs; tagging; monitoring sightings and strandings of turtles, dugongs, dolphins, whales and whale sharks; conducting socio-economic and biological surveys to collect information on values, beliefs, perceptions and trends; and raising awareness through village meetings, competitions and distribution of educational materials. Aside from the field work, I am also responsible for fund-raising and report writing and dissemination of our work through local and international media and publications.

I work closely with John Mbugani the Education / Field Officer who is Tanzanian and who graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 2007 with a BSc in Marine Biology from the Faculty of Aquatic Sciences & Technology. John spends the majority of his time in the field, either in villages raising awareness, training Conservation Officers and organizing campaigns or on the beaches or at sea monitoring turtle nests, reports of dead marine animals or illegal activities.

We have just completed a dynamic primary schools’ competition centered around dugongs for World Environment Day and have many more exciting activities planned for the rest of 2008!

Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be reporting on the work of Sea Sense, I hope you enjoy reading about the work which we are so passionate about!!

Tags: community, dugong, marine, poaching, Sea Sense, Tanzania, turtles, whale, whale shark

2 responses so far