Participants

Alex Macharia – team leader Francis Chege Semeli Lolchuraki Nterito Kapina James Nuymu Vincent Mutua 4 KWS rangers

Areas Covered

During the course of the month of March the following areas were patrolled by the Mtito de-snaring team: The Triangle, Mtito river circuit, Kenani, Kanga, and the community lands around Kilalinda.

228 SNARES COLLECTED and 4 ROLLS 4 ARRESTS

Findings

The Triangle area We began the month’s patrols at the Triangle area which is an important area due to its proximity to the rhino area in Tsavo East National Park.

For this reason we always make sure to patrol the area extensively, made harder by the deep thickets and lugged terrains. The area was found to be very dry making it easier for us to patrol as most of the poaching would be taking place around the water pans and water holes. We were able to uproot several snares and arrest 2 poachers.

Mtito river circuit Due to the ongoing drought there has been an increase in the number of wildlife being brought into the park to graze. In order to evade arrest the cattle grazers run away as soon as they see us leaving the cattle to return home on their own in the evening. We lifted all the snares that we found during our patrols. Most of the snares we found targeted small game as the people setting them are probably the cattle grazers and they do not want to jeopardize harming their cattle by setting large snares.

Kenani/Kanga Both of these areas border the Nairobi Mombasa highway and are poaching hotspots. We consider our monthly patrols to be incomplete if these areas are not visited. The poachers operating in these areas access them by train or other means of public transport. During our patrols we visited old hideouts and were able to arrest a poacher in possession of 4 rolls of snares.

We also came across logged wood and footprints of poachers operating in the area.

Kilalinda Farm/community land This is an area that lies close to several community lands. We patrolled the farm and were able to lift 18 small snares.

We were also able to rescue a snared Dikdik and set it free.

Sightings Lots of animals were seen during our patrols. It was interesting to see wild dogs in the triangle and around the Kaluku area. Among the animals seen were Elephants, Zebras, Giraffes, Antelopes and Buffaloes.

Report by Alex Macharia