Global Voices » Samuel Maina

Kenya: Massive Flooding in Samburu as Ewaso Nyiro River Bursts its Banks

Samuel Maina — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:38:55 +0000

STE Research Camp under water

At dawn on Thursday, 4 March 2010, a massive flash flood hit Samburu in northern Kenya destroying 6 tourist lodges, some wildlife research camps and leaving thousands marooned on roof tops and on trees. This wave of rushing water came from the Ewaso Nyiro River which has burst it's banks following heavy rain around Mount Kenya.

The Ewaso Lions blog writes:

Around 5am this morning [4 March], a giant flashflood came down the Ewaso Nyiro river, washing away lodges and camps. Our friends at Elephant Watch and Save The Elephants [STE] managed to reach high ground, but the camps were wiped out. Elsewhere, people were on treetops and roofs waiting for help. The British Army, Tropic Air, and others spent the day evacuating people out of the area.

Paula Kahumbu shares on the Baraza blog a communication from the Save the Elephants whose research base was destroyed:

Today we woke up to reports from our guys at the research centre that Samburu is under water! The whole of Samburu is flooded! All our tents have been washed away! Our research camp as we know it is gone! Luckily all our guys are safe but hanging from trees and at hilltops waiting to be rescued by helicopter!

Paula's blog post says, “As of now the flood waters are apparently receding but all the camps in Samburu and Shaba have been evacuated.” This is in anticipation of more rain that is likely to come. The Ewaso Lions bloggers say, “What’s especially frightening is that a lot more rain is expected.”

The Ewaso Lions posted some photos - together with an appeal - which were sent by their blogger, Shivani, who's currently in Samburu. The appeal urges people to donate through the blog or to contact their Nairobi office (for those in Nairobi and wishing to give food and clothes). WildlifeDirect has also posted an appeal using the same photos.

One of Kenya's independent TV stations NTV has uploaded a You Tube video of the devastation.

Opposition Mounts over Tanzania and Zambia Ivory Proposals to CITES

Samuel Maina — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:43:10 +0000

Broken elephant tusk found in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, by Terry Feuerborn

Opposition is mounting against Zambia's and Tanzania's proposals to be allowed by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to sell their government held ivory stockpiles.

With Kenya being the perennial opposition for any trade in ivory, it is no surprise that most opposition is coming from conservation groups in this country. Additionally, Kenya has renewed their push to have a 20 year moratorium on the sale of ivory after this same proposal resulted in pushing the moratorium for only 9 years after the 2008 one-off ivory auction by four southern Africa states. Kenya's media has picked up the story. NTV Kenya has a video on YouTube titled, Wildlife Worries.

The Baraza blog published the content of the proposals that Zambia and Tanzania have put forward and Kenya's opposing proposal. Maina explains on Baraza

On the one hand is the anti-trade range states consisting of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone. On the other hand, each with it’s own proposal is Zambia and Tanzania, who want to be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles come the March 13-25 Doha meeting – the 15th CITES Conference of Parties (CoP15). Both sides have sent their proposals to the CITES secretariat and the secretariat has generously posted the proposals on their website.

In a different blog post on Baraza, Paula writes about the UK's resolve to vote against the two proposals:

The UK has said no to ivory sales. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last night: “At the CITES meeting in March, the UK will vote against the proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to sell ivory stocks, and we would urge other countries to vote against such a sale.

Paula writes on Ban Ivory - a new blog at WildlifeDirect dedicated to the campaign against ivory - asking “Are elephants worth more than their teeth“. She asks: ”Are elephants just a source of a valuable commodity, ivory? Or do elephants deserve special treatment?”

Paula points out that inspite of all the support that Africans can expect from outside, the battle for the elephant will have to start with Africans. She says:

At the end of the day the protest against the trade in ivory will have to be led by Africans if the rest of the world is to take any notice which makes Kenya’s campaign so powerful. But as long as the Chinese and other Asians markets continue to provide markets for ivory trinkets and refuse to implement domestic enforcement, a renewed ban on trade in ivory will fail and we will continue to lose elephants.

A group known as the Kenya Elephant Forum is leading the Kenyan civil society in the protest against ivory trade resumption and have produced fact sheets on the issue. Harvey Croze, blogging on the Amboseli Trust for Elephants pages says

ATE is against the trade. We have been working with like-minded NGOs and individuals under the aegis of the Kenya Elephant Forum (KEF) to provide strategic information to a body of sympathetic African elephant range states called the African Elephant Coalition (AEC).

In this blog post, Harvey has included links to the KEF Fact Sheets that you may want to read in order to understand the ivory problem and the likely implication of the Tanzania/Zambia proposals.

Kenya: Waiting for El Niño

Samuel Maina — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:02:38 +0000

Waiting for El Nino Rains

Kenyans are waiting for the El Niño rains anticipated between now and December 2009 with mixed feelings. Inasmuch as the El Niño is itself a natural disaster that in it's ‘moderate' form is expected to displace at least 100,000 people and leave 750,000 in need of humanitarian aid according to IRIN, most Kenyans actually want this El Niño.

Normally, people would be running scared at the prospect of drowning or losing property and livestock in the expected El Niño flooding, but not this year. The drought in the East African nation has been hard and long - with at least 10 million Kenyans facing hunger (IRIN) - and the populace will take anything with water in it: Even a natural disaster.

American national, Katherine Herzog, commenting on an Ewaso Lions blog post titled ‘When will it rain, the drought persists in Samburu', said “A ‘moderate' El Niño rain event will hopefully transform the region which you skillfully and painfully describe. Although rain on hard, dry ground usually means flooding - rain in any form will be a boon for man, livestock and wildlife alike.

Wildlife is normally more tolerant to drought than humans and livestock but wild animals are starting to die. Ewaso Lions described the situation in early September:

Unfortunately, due to the lack of water, waterbuck, impala, buffalo, warthog, cattle, donkeys and sheep have begun to die everyday. Large groups of close to 20 warthogs that were around in April and May have now reduced to 1 or 2 warthogs and even they have begun to die. I watched a crocodile die the other day. He had come out of hibernation and literally dropped dead outside his hole. More animals will die over the next few weeks reducing the species numbers and diversity within the area. Pressure on the reserves from livestock will continue. Animals are dying; every week, every day, every minute.

Predators are however doing well now that there are many weak and dying animals making easy prey for them. There is however the increasing risk of being hunted down by cattle herders as more and more livestock are driven into the wildlife reserves in search of pasture and water. The presence of livestock in wildlife territory means that they are likely to be preyed upon by predators, which then will be killed, in retaliation, by the herders. Ewaso Lions blog adds:

However, due to the drought and the river drying up, there is more pressure on the reserves from livestock, increasing the human threat to lions and we are working hard to try and monitor all individual lions inside the reserves.

This was in early September and although a little rain has been reported in western Kenya, with some flooding occurring in Kenya's third city Kisumu, El Niño is not here yet. The drought continues. Even in the so called ‘wildlife capital' of the world, Nairobi National Park, the situation is no better. The water holes are drying, there is no grazing or browsing vegetation, and the situation is worrying. Will Knocker posted on October 7 saying:

Even giraffe -supremely adapted to life on the African plain- are getting hungry & wandering far & wide in search of browse -including to my garden in the Silole Sanctuary. In the Langata Forest some of their favourite food shrubs - Rus natalensis -has died owing to drought.

On October 7 again, the Lion Guardians continued to lament about the devastating drought reporting that the situation has deterioriated since they first reported about the drought. They say:

The drought is still continuing here, and the animals and people are struggling badly. Everyone hopes rain will fall soon and bring back some life to the parched land. The water hole near to our neighbouring lodge Ol Donyo Wuas is constantly visited by many elephants, as well as very thin herbivores like these zebras, all looking for the scarce water.

and,

There is no grass left to be eaten anywhere, and the wildlife and livestock are starving. These hills were once covered with long green grass - now there is nothing for the animals to eat.

In the Mara wildlands that flank the world-famous Masai Mara National Reserve, the Predator Aware blog reports difficult times for the Maasai community:

The Masai Mara communities are under huge pressure with the ongoing drought and the loss of cattle as pastoral ism is their number one income earner at present followed by tourism.

In response to a comment from one of the blog readers, Predator Aware laments the dwindling of the wildlands lifeline, the Mara River, and utters the same prayer that is on the lips of all these bloggers:

Yes the Mara River is seriously low . The degradation of the Mau Forest which is the headwaters of the Mara River as well as the drought have caused this. Rain is the only healer and we hope it comes soon.

Kenya: CEO of Wildlife Blogging Site Named Pop!Tech 2009 Fellow

Samuel Maina — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:34:02 +0000

Dr Paula Kahumbu

Pop!Tech is coming again this October and on 9 September they issued a release announcing the 2009 Social Innovation Fellows which was also blogged about by Pop!Tech's Kristen Taylor.

Pop!Tech is a conference set in Camden Maine, where every year scientist, artists and innovators meet to discuss ideas and world changing actions around the world.

PopTech (poptech.org) is a unique innovation network - a global community of cutting-edge leaders, thinkers, and doers from many different disciplines, who come together to explore the social impact of new technologies, the forces of change shaping our future, and new approaches to solving the world’s most significant challenges. We are known for our thriving community of thought-leaders, breakthrough innovation programs, visionary annual conferences and deep media and storytelling capabilities.

In the list of 16 fellows was Dr Paula Kahumbu, an Kenyan ecologist educated at Princeton and the Executive Director of the Kenyan web-based conservation NGO, WildlifeDirect.

Excited about the news of recognition for their work, WildlifeDirect issued a release informing others of their head's selection and posted it on their main blog, Baraza.

On Wednessday, 9 September 2009, Dr Paula Kahumbu, the WildlifeDirect Executive Director was named one of the 16 fellows of the prestigious PopTech Social Innovation Fellows program of 2009 for her work at WildlifeDirect.

Pop!Tech fellows will attend a 5-day ‘boot camp' just before Pop!Tech 2009: America Re-imagined conference (October 21 – 24, 2009, Camden, ME). This will be the second year of the Pop!Tech fellows program and the 16 fellows have been drawn from various fields and countries, three of them from Africa. Paula is one of the two that work in Kenya and the only one who comes from wildlife conservation field. Baraza says,

The 2009 fellows program - which is the second since inception - attracted more than 200 applicants from more than 30 countries. Of the 16 selected, only three are from Africa, two of whom are Kenyan. Although a number of these fellows deal with climate change and clean energy, only Dr Kahumbu has been selected for her work in using the internet to raise awareness and funds for wildlife conservation - especially in Africa. The 16 fellows represent organizations based in or running projects in USA, UK, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Kenya.

The other Kenyan in the list is Ory Okolloh of Ushahidi, an online platform for crowdsourcing and mapping crisis reports. Nobody at Ushahidi or elsewhere seems to have blogged about her selection however.

Other blogs have also announced their representatives selection to the Pop!Tech list including the Energize Clinton County who seem quite excited

As Pop!Tech Social Innovation fellows, we’ll be joining 14 other amazing innovators (!!) from around the world in a five day “boot-camp” just before the Pop!Tech conference.

ECC has also posted a video from the 2008 Pop!Tech on their blog to show what the new fellows should expect.

Paula Kahumbu will be presenting the WildlifeDirect concept that was developed by Kenya's renowned conservationist and anthropologist, Dr Richard Leakey back in 2004. Baraza says,

Dr Paula Kahumbu will be taking the WildlifeDirect idea and experience to PopTech to share with the other fellows. The WildlifeDirect idea was developed by Dr Richard Leakey and associates to bring together conservationists working in remote and often dangerous places - mostly in Africa but also in Asia and South America - and supporters of conservation through blogs.

We wish Paula, Ory and other fellows a great experience during the Pop!Tech ‘boot camp' and conference.

Kenya: Lion-saving Art Takes Shape

Samuel Maina — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:32:54 +0000

Androcles, the WildlifeDirect lion

The pride of Kenya Campaign, being touted as the biggest event in Kenya's conservation calendar this year, has been picking pace and excitement has been building.

The Pride of Kenya is a campaign - coordinated by the Born Free Foundation - to raise awareness about the plight of the declining population of Kenya's lions, which today number a meager 2,100 animals, and to raise funds for their protection.

Recently, Alice Owen of the Kenya office of the Born Free Foundation posted on the Pride of Kenya blog hosted at WildlifeDirect about the start of the painting of the first of the 50 life-sized fiberglass lions at the centre of this campaign. Alice said:

Schools, businesses and private individuals have sponsored lion canvasses and the first images of the lions being painted are starting to arrive!! Kenton College in Nairobi decided to sponsor a lion and paint it before the children broke up for Summer as a treat!

This campaign is not just about painting, it is about getting involved. The Kenton College art teacher, for instance, had a surprise for his students. Alice writes:

The art teacher, Mr Adam Burgess, at Kenton college created a dramatic reception for the Kenton lion. He had it hidden in the bushes near the football field early last week.

During assembly, the children were informed of an “escaped” animal in their school compound, and had to go around looking for it. They hurdled in groups of twos and threes, and took to the hunt.

Then more Pride members started leaving the art godowns where they were sculpted. And Noni Mruttu wrote in the Pride of Kenya blog:

This past week has been busy, busy, busy for the Pride of Kenya project. With the lions being delivered to their sponsors and the artists getting to work on them, they are running out fast!

The Sarit Lion

Another twist to the involvement approach comes to light when Sarit Centre, a popular shopping mall in Nairobi, and one of the ‘lion sponsors', opted to have students from one of the international schools in the City, Braeburn High School, paint their lion. Noni writes:

Sarit Centre also received their lion and the year 11 class of Braeburn High School have been busy painting it, even taking time during their holiday to work on it. We are all very excited as everything is coming together beautifully.

On Tuesday, 18 August 2009, Peter Greste, a great photographer who also writes and films for the BBC, visited renowned Kenyan artist, Mary Collis, who is working on a lion ‘adopted' by Kenyan conservation NGO, WildlifeDirect, and took some pictures of the work in progress. Maina blogged on Pride of Kenya blog about the first images of this lion that has been - symbolically - christened Androcles:

Things happened rather rapidly this week. Suddenly we had a name for the WildlifeDirect lion - Androcles. Before we got used to that, Peter, a friend of WildlifeDirect, who photographs, films and writes for the BBC, visited the artist who is working on the lion and took amazing pictures. And now you can see the first pictures of Androcles as he takes shape in the hands of the renowned artist, Mary Collis.

This campaign will culminate in an auction in November 2009 where the 50 fiberglass lions, variously decorated, will go under the hammer with all the funds raised going into lion conservation in Kenya.

Kenya: Fibreglass Lions to go ‘Wild' in Nairobi

Samuel Maina — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:59:20 +0000

Freshly sculpted lions

As Kenya's lions continue to face persecution and the population continues to dwindle, a campaign to raise funds and awareness about the lions was launched on 17 June 2009 in Nairobi.

An initiative of the Born Free Foundation, this project will use 50 fiberglass lions, dubbed ‘the Pride of Kenya‘ to drive awareness about the plight of the 2,100 lions that still remain in Kenya.

“For Kshs 200,000 ($2,500), we’re asking organizations to sponsor a life-size fibre glass lion and we’ll be getting artists to decorate them in July and August”, says the Pride of Kenya blog.

Many corporate bodies in Kenya have subscribed to this campaign and have ‘adopted' each their own lion. Substantial media attention has also started building around this campaign with the Nation Media Group, one of the key media houses in Kenya, being right in the middle of the campaign.

This campaign is already being anticipated to become the biggest wildlife event of the year. The Pride of Kenya blog says, “Pride of Kenya really is going to be the biggest thing in Kenyan conservation this year”. “Pride of Kenya…launched today at the Serena Hotel, Nairobi, is already being described as an event with potentially national significance”, Will Travers, the Born Free Foundation CEO said in the same blog on the day of the inauguration of the campaign.

Although most lions have been adopted by business people, WildlifeDirect, a Kenyan web-based conservation organization has also adopted a lion. WildlifeDirect has put the fight to stop the importation and sale of Furadan - an agricultural pesticide that is responsible for the death of more than 75 lions in the past few years - as the focus of their campaign. There was excitement when WildlifeDirect signed the agreement that secured them one lion. The WildlifeDirect Team blog, Baraza, wrote:

Our campaign will focus on ending lion poisoning using Furadan. The centerpiece for this campaign will be a life-sized lion statue made of fiberglass.

WildlifeDirect will also involve the readers of their blogs. On Baraza, they said:

We need ideas for the art we shall create on this ‘canvas’. I know you have lots of ideas. Send them to us. We are thinking that it would be great if we could send a global message about lion conservation with our lion. You can be as creative as you want. You can even suggest modification of the lion – as long as it still looks like a lion. But we cannot put advertising. No logos.

The Born Free Foundation has said that these lions have to have been decorated by end of August in readiness for a parade in Nairobi this November. The lions will then go under auction on the same day and proceeds from the auction will go towards lion conservation projects in Kenya. The November date also coincides with Born Free's 25th Anniversary.

There are signs that this campaign - modeled around the Go Elephants campaign held in Summer 2008 in Norwich- will be exciting and it would be interesting to see how the blogosphere and media will react to it.

Kenya: Devastating Drought Worsens Human-Wildlife Conflict

Samuel Maina — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:44:24 +0000

No grass in sight

Kenya is experiencing the worst drought in more than a decade according to the country's meteorological department. This drought has been felt throughout the country, but it is more visible among the Maasai community who's primary source of livelihood is cattle.

Faced by the danger of loosing their valued livestock, the Maasai, a traditional nomadic community resident in southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania, are driving their cattle into wildlife areas - and even cities - in search of pasture. This has worsened human-wildlife conflict as the weakened cows fall prey to lions and other predators.

The Lion Guardians blog reports that there has not been any good rain in two years.

The drought is worsening day by day. It has not rained properly for two consecutive years, and the pastoralist Maasai community who inhabit the [Mbirikani] group ranch have moved their livestock in three directions in search of greener pastures. The cows are all becoming very thin, and many are dying.

Predator Aware, a group that works towards conservation of predators, is also reporting some dire situations in Masai Mara wildlands and Siana ranches in the southern part of Kenya. In the Predetor Aware blog they say:

The Masai Mara and Siana in particular is running out of grazing [pasture] as the need for rain continues. Last night there appeared to be a storm over the Reserve some where. We are hoping this is an indicator and more rain will come. This dry weather really increases the human-wildlife conflict as the search for water and grazing goes on.

Although wildlife are better able to cope with drought, cattle are very badly hit. The Maasai, being traditionally nomadic pastoralists, will do what they have done for generations, they will move their cattle to seek pasture. It happens that the only places with open pasture are protected areas such as national parks and reserves. Ironically, most of the world famous parks in Kenya were carved out of traditional Maasai reserve pastures. The Lion Guardians blog describes the movement of the Maasai groups living adjacent to Amboseli National Park:

The first group moved their livestock all the way to Manyara in Tanzania. Others decided to take their cattle to Tsavo West National Park, but they have been experiencing serious clashes with the park authorities, who are trying to prevent the pastures of the national park from being overgrazed by cattle, leaving the ground bare.

Some of the these herders have traveled with their cattle for more than 400 km in search of pasture and water. Some have moved northwards towards Nairobi City after a little rain was reported some weeks ago, while others have moved south into Tanzania.

The severity of the drought can be heard in the words of ole Lentura, the key blogger at Predator Aware. ‘The days bring hot sun and a lot of wind', says ole Lentura who reports that wildlife that are traditionally grazers (feed on grass) are being forced to browse on trees and bushes as they adapt to the absence of grass.

“Elders in the group ranch are describing this drought as the worst ever, and with price of consumer goods sky-rocketing while the price of selling livestock and other domestic products are falling, the situation is triggering a catastrophic food crisis” say the Lion Guardians.

Of the human wildlife conflict ole Lentura of Predator Aware says “No predator incidents to report but another Maasai man sadly was killed by a buffalo over the weekend. This human-wildlife conflict will not lessen until we get some good rain.”

Kenyans Race to Get Furadan Banned

Samuel Maina — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:18:37 +0000

Lion cub poisoned in the Masai Mara

Kenyan conservationists are making gains in their push to have Furadan, a carbofuran-based pesticide that has so far caused the death of 76 lions, banned in the country.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Naivasha Constituency, Honourable John Mututho, has now joined the call for a total ban on this lethal poison by taking the appeal to parliament. On Tuesday, 2 June 2009, the Baraza blog reports scanned some pieces from the news, and reports that Hon. Mututho asked the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife for the ban amid overwhelming support from other parliamentarians.

In today’s national newspapers in Kenya, there were two stories about lion poisoning in the Masai Mara. One in The Standard reports the Minister for Forestry and Wildlife Services Dr Noah Wekesa saying that lions were dying in the Masai Mara and Furadan was responsible. He however referred Hon. John Mututho’s call for its ban to the Agriculture Minister and the Pesticide Control Products Board.

In the other news item appearing in the Daily Nation, the Kenya Wildlife Service, which is the custodian of Kenya’s wildlife, has accused farmers of poisoning one lion, some hyenas and 35 vultures in the Mara. The KWS said that there were traces of a pinkish substance on the carcase that was used to bait the these carnivores and scavengers.

The Minister on his part, while acknowledging that Furadan was killing many lions in a country that now has only 2100 lions down from 30,000 a few decades back, however, referred the question of the ban to the Minister for Agriculture and the Pest Control Products Board - the government organization that regulates pesticides in Kenya.

Kenyan conservationists have been fighting for the removal of Furadan from the market since the mid-1990s when massive poisoning of wild ducks was being witnessed in the rice-growing Mwea Irrigation Scheme in the Eastern Province. It was however the recent coverage of lion poisoning problem by American broadcaster CBS that this issue has become of great concern for Kenyan leaders. Hon Mututho however had asked for a ban back in 2008 following the death of lions in Masai Mara.

Although FMC Corporation, the Philadelphia-based manufacturer of Furadan announced an immediate withdrawal of the lethal chemical from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania just hours after the CBS programme on 60 Minutes, lions and other wildlife are still being poisoned with Furadan. Martin Odino, a Kenyan researcher attached to the National Museums of Kenya, has been reporting in his Stop Wildlife Poisoning blog about alarming poisoning of birds which seem to be sold for food.

About a month after FMC's withdrawal of the chemical from the market, Baraza blog reports that an eight-month-old lion cub died after consuming a carcase of a cow that had been laced with a pesticide suspected to be Furadan. Several hyenas and an estimated 40 vultures were also poisoned by the same carcase. With the lion cub was four other lions whose fate has not been established yet.

These poisoning cases have made conservationists relentless in their pursuit for the ban. On 9 June 2009, conservationists met at WildlifeDirect offices in Nairobi and in that meeting, they brought out the dire situation facing birds. It emerged that even as lion poisoning was in the limelight, the poisoning of birds was equally catastrophic. A report by KWS indicated that birds were being poisoned in ‘pick-up truck loads'. WildlifeDirect, which convened this meeting, promptly issued a statement throught the Baraza blog.

The Baraza blog provides a way for readers to make a donation.

Kenya: World Renowned Elephant Matriarch Dies in Amboseli

Samuel Maina — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:38:14 +0000

The Unforgetable Echo

World renowned Amboseli National Park elephant matriarch, Echo, has died from what the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE) believes to be a combination of old age and the long 3-year drought that has left this southern Kenya wildlife preserve dry and with little to offer in terms of food.

Echo died at 2pm on Sunday, 3 May 2009. She had collapsed on Saturday morning and had remained down for more than 24 hours, unable to get up, until she eventually died. “ATE staff Katito and Robert stayed with her the whole time”, Cynthia Moss, who learned of Echo's death while on a fundraising trip in the US, told WildlifeDirect on Monday, 4 May. Moss has suspended her US trip to travel to Kenya to be with the sorrowful staff at STE and to observe how Echo's family will deal with this sudden loss.

When Moss identified Echo for the first time in 1973, the elephant's family consisted of 7 members. At the time of her death, 36 years later, Echo was the leader of a family of 40 elephants that roamed the Amboseli plains in the shadow of the majestic Kilimanjaro.

Echo is perhaps the most famous wild elephant in the world after her appearance in various films the most memorable being her 1993 debut in the film Echo of the Elephants produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and narrated by world famous elephant researcher Cynthia Moss with BBC's Martyn Colbeck behind the camera. Echo appeared in the films sequels now popularly known as the ‘Echo Trilogy'.

The ‘Echo Trilogy' includes Echo of the Elephants (1993), Echo of the Elephants: The Next Generation (1996), and, the most recent, Echo of the Elephants: The Final Chapter (2005). Most recently, Echo has appeared in the film about Martyn Colbeck's work called An Eye for An Elephant.

According to Moss, the loss of Echo will be very disturbing for her elephant family.

“For all of them, except for her sister Ella, Echo was the only leader they have ever known”

says Moss in a communication to WildlifeDirect also posted in the ATE website. Moss will be observing how the elephants handle the transition from Amboseli, Kenya.

Echo was of great value to science. Moss says

“For us on the Amboseli Elephant Research Project she has been an invaluable research subject providing us with insights into elephant behavior, leadership, communication, social relations and intelligence”. But Echo was not just a research project. “She was more than that. She was a daily presence, almost a companion to all of us. She gave us joy and filled us with wonder”

For all those who knew Echo, this is indeed a great loss. Dr Paula Kahumbu asked readers of the blog Baraza to light a candle for this magnificent mother, while Joyce Poole and Peter Granli remembered the moments they spent with Echo while studying elephant vocal communication on their blog at Elephant Voices.

DR Congo: Baby Gorilla Rescued in Trafficking Bust

Samuel Maina — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:01:00 +0000

On Sunday, 26 April 2009, ICCN Rangers, led by the Virunga National Park Director - a former WildlifeDirect CEO - Emmanuel de Merode arrested a suspected gorilla trafficker and recovered a concealed baby eastern lowland gorilla.

The suspect was accosted and arrested as he disembarked from a plane at Goma International Airport where the rangers had been waiting for his arrival from Walikale in the interior of the country and close to gorilla habitat. Eastern Lowland Gorillas are only found in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The baby gorilla, which had been hidden under a pile of clothes in a bag was weak, dehydrated and suffering from over-heating after spending long hours in the poorly ventilated bag.

This video shows the sequence of events just before and after the trafficker was arrested.

The Gorilla Protection blog says that this is evidence that there is indeed a market for gorilla babies and talks of an incidence where “we (WildlifeDirect) were approached by someone commissioned by a rich citizen of a middle eastern country, who wanted to know how to go about purchasing a baby gorilla.”

Emmanuel de Merode confirms that this market exists and that it is a very lucrative one at that. He is quoted in a blog post at Gorilla.cd saying:

Our work has revealed a significant upsurge in the trafficking of baby gorillas in recent months, possibly as a result of the war last year. Investigations have yet to reveal where these animals are being sent and who is buying them, but on the ground sources tell us that a baby gorilla can fetch up to $20,000

This arrest was the culmination of three months of investigation into this racket. The Gorilla Protection blog rejoiced at the news and hoped that “justice will be served and the baby gorilla returns to it’s natural habitat.”

FMC Meets with Conservationists in Nairobi over Furadan

Samuel Maina — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:03:18 +0000

Furadan meeting at WildlifeDirect office, Nairobi

On Wednesday, 15 April 2009, two representatives FMC, the Philadelphia-based manufacturer of the controversial pesticide that is at the centre of lion poisoning in Kenya, Furadan, met with conservationists that WildlifeDirect had gathered for that purpose. The conservationists had high hopes following FMC's announcement that they had withdrawn the deadly chemical from the Kenyan market and were implementing a buy-back program to remove the existing stock from the country. They had hopes for a productive meeting that would result in the charting of a strategy to ensure that all Furadan stock still in the country is removed.

However, Dr Paula Kahumbu - WildlifeDirect's CEO and convener of the meeting - while blogging at Baraza, said that things were not as rosy as they expected. “Of course FMC are not really interested in wildlife per se” she said in her blog post dated April 16. It was harrowing, according to her, that FMC would consider re-introduction of Furadan in future.

The scariest thing we heard from FMC was that they “will reintroduce Furadan once the right conditions are in place” course they wouldn’t divulge what those were.

Paula does not hide her frustration especially that stemming from the fact that FMC did not officially acknowledge that their product was devastating wildlife in Kenya. FMC say that there is not enough evidence to conclusively say that Furadan is responsible for all these wildlife deaths and they had taken the initiative to remove the product from the market just as a precaution. As difficult as it is to get imperical evidence against Furadan in Africa, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that points to the preference to use Furadan to poison wildlife. “With all the other evidence we have, eg. people admitting to using Furadan, purple grains on carcasses baited for lions, purple grains on snails for the bird hunting in Bunyala…How much more obvious does it have to be? asks Paula.

What FMC does or who they meet - for they have scheduled several meetings with government bodies - there is one disturbing point about Furadan and Paula has it in her post.

What I can’t get my head around is how our government can defend the use of a chemical that is banned in Europe and for which the US EPA has found there is no safe way to use it in a country of educated people who also have excellent enforcement. In Kenya the people who use Furadan don’t even know how to read the label and none of them use any form of protective gear. That alone should make the officials question whether it’s safe for human use.

Lion Poisoning causes FMC to Withdraw Furadan from Kenya Market

Samuel Maina — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:22:33 +0000

One of the lions poisoned in 2008

The American chemical manufacturer, FMC, has withdrawn the pesticide, Furadan, from the Kenyan market after CBS News aired a documentary on ‘60 Minutes'. The documentary depicts how Furadan has become the preferred product for herders who poison lions suspected of killing livestock in and around the Masai Mara National Reserve.

Dr Paula Kahumbu has the entire press release on The Baraza Blog, and Martin Odino serializes the use of Furadan to kill all sorts of wildlife in his blog Stop Wildlife Poisoning on WildlifeDirect.org

FMC issued a statement on 29 March 2009 condemning the reported misuse of this highly potent agricultural pesticide as depicted in the documentary.

FMC strongly condemns the use of its products to kill wildlife and is very concerned about these allegations

In the press statement, FMC reports that it has taken several actions to curb the abuse of Furadan in Kenya including:

Stopping all sales of Furadan to Kenya immediately after learning of an incident in May 2008
Immediately initiating a Furadan buy-back program in Kenya to remove any remaining product from the market
Direct outreach to leading conservationists to get any data concerning lion poisonings

D.R. Congo: Chimps are Not Pets

Samuel Maina — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:15:56 +0000

The mainstream media is abuzz with news of a 15-year old 200 pound (90kg) chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut, USA. The Ape, which had starred in TV commercials and films had attacked and left the woman, a friend of his owner, in a ‘very serious' state.

An adult chimp

Biologists and primatologists have, as would be expected, reacted to this news item with a stern warning that chimpanzees - and by extension - all wild animals cannot be treated as pets.

The Lola ya Bonobo blog on WildlifeDirect posted explanation of why you cant have a chimp as a pet. They enumerate several reasons why this is so including the fact that chimps are wild animals unlike dogs and cats which have been domesticated for thousands of years thus allowing humans to selectively breed extreme aggression from their gene pool.

According to Lola ya Bonobo, this aggressiveness is somewhat not apparent when the apes are young. It is the reason why chimp traffickers sell the apes when they are still young but as they grow - to become almost the size of an adult male human, but with the strength of 10 heavyweight boxers - the owners are unable to control them.

It is a struggle to keep a chimp humanely and safely even for zoos and sanctuaries. Domestic owners obviously have no way of achieving anything near what zoos have. This leads to heightened aggressiveness and endangerment of human life.

Chimps, and all primates, due to their close genetic make-up to humans, potentially carry diseases that can easily be transmitted to humans such as Herpes B, yellow fever, monkeypox, Ebola, Marburg, SIV, and tuberculosis. This alone should deter humans from keeping primates as pets.

Then there is the ultimate reason why you should not keep wild animals as pets: the pet trade is an international menace that threatens many species with extinction. Conservationists are trying to stop this trade in developing countries where people trap endangered wild animals to sell as pets at home and abroad. But it is not only a problem of the developing counties alone. Lola ya Bonobo says:

…politicians in these countries point to the lack of laws in the United States and ask why is it wrong and illegal for them to have a chimpanzee as a pet, and if chimpanzees are endangered animals that should be conserved and protected, [why should] anyone in the USA [be able] order one over the Internet with a credit card?

Lola ya Bonobo closes by saying:

We don’t buy and sell people any more. Since chimps and bonobos share 98.7% of our DNA, don’t they deserve the same respect?

Kenya: Urgent Translocation of the Lelwel Hartebeest

Samuel Maina — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:54:33 +0000

At the close of 2008, squatters who had been evicted from the Mount Kenya and Aberdare forests about two decades ago in Kenya were allocated plots a section, Sector D, of the expansive Solio Ranch in Laikipia. The 15,500 acres Sector D is, however, home to 480 Lelwel hartebeest ; 600 plains zebra; 210 impala; 1,020 Thomson’s gazelle; 36 oryx; and 41 eland.

Elodie Sampéré, writing in the new Lewa Wildlife Conservancy blog at WildlifeDirect, emphasizes on the importance of the Solio population of the Lelwel Hartebeest saying,

There are only about 1,000 Lelwel hartebeest left in Kenya. They are only found in two places: (1) Ruma National Park, where only a few dozen animals remain. and (2) a population of approximately 1,000 individuals in Laikipia District. This Laikipia population has been shown to be genetically diverse. About 75% of this population is found on Solio Ranch.

The Lelwel heartbeeste is listed as endangered in the IUCN Red List of 2008 as the global population has declined from 285,000 in the 1980s to less than 70,000 today.

As the human settlers start to move into Sector D, the threat of poaching and bushmeat hunting will increase exponentially. That is why the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy and the Kenya Wildlife Service have been translocating these rare antelopes out of Solio's Sector D. The first wave of squatters has arrived and the translocation has now become an urgent matter.

To date, they have already moved 245 hartebeest; 140 plains zebra and 25 impalas. Lewa Wildlife Conservancy has now launched an appeal to help raise some funds to translocate the rest of the wildlife. You can follow respond to this appeal in their new blog.

What does Krill Fishing and Sandalwood Harvesting Have in Common?

Samuel Maina — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:33:28 +0000

At first glance, there is no way Krill and Sandalwood could have anything in common: one is a sea animal and the other is a land plant. If you examine the plight of both species of biodiversity, then there are some similarities.

World renowned Kenyan conservationist, Dr Richard Leakey, who just returned from a trip to the Antarctic, reports in his blog that Japan has developed very effective Krill fishing techniques that ensure great success for the fishing boats:hauling massive tonnage of the tiny crustacean. As a result, they are rapidly depleting the resource. Krill are tremendously important as the base of virtually all vertebrate food chains in the sea.

This depletion of the basic food of the sea, according to Dr Leakey, is affecting the entire food chain and having detrimental effects on large and charismatic sea animals higher up the food pyramid such as whales, orcas, penguins and seals. Add to this the effect of the terrible global warming/climate change twins and the survival of wildlife in the Antarctic becomes rather strained. Dr Leakey says:

The other alarming information I obtained was that the Krill (the essential base of the food chain for the vertebrate fauna) are also being depleted. Whilst climate change and its effect on ice flows and pack ice have a major bearing on this, there is today massive fishing for krill by Japan. I was told that new techniques for extracting krill at a far greater tonnage were now having devastating effects on the population density. This will have an additional impact upon the survival of other biodiversity further up the food chain.

Sandalwood is also caught up in the same over-extraction debacle. A Kenyan example is drawn by Saving Kenya's Forests blog. The blog says:

Kenya is losing the Sandalwood tree (Osyris lanceolata) to illegal harvesting. The harvesting – initially reported in the Chyulu hills - seems to have escalated and has now been reported in Kajiado, Taita, Amboseli and surrounding ranches, Samburu, Koibatek, and Kikuyu Escarpment and many other areas. In most areas it’s being harvested without much control.

Sandalwood is mostly used in making perfumes from its essential oils within the heartwood of its trunk, main branches and roots. According to the blog, the sandalwood is being traded in neighboring Tanzania and after semi-processing, the product is exported “to Indonesia, India, South Africa, France, Germany and eastern Asia countries for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry”.