MITITO TEAM

De-snaring report for November 2004

Participants

David Njoroge Peter Wambua Franci Chege Isiah Ndei John Malonza KWS personnel

Findings

Due to the large number of snares recovered last month we decided that it would be more productive to join up with Peregrine team and operate in the same areas together. During the month we based both teams at the Mtito gate and operated in both Tsavo East and West as well as on the railway stations. In Ngiluni we encountered two live DikDiks both caught in snares and we managed to release them un harmed.

Later that same day we discovered another two which had sadly died perhaps a day before we found them. The next day we found two Lesser Kudu’s, a male and a female, unfortunately the male had died but we managed to release the female. Throughout the whole operation we recovered a total of 554 snares, 70% of which were designed for small mammals. A few of the snares that we recovered were constructed out of vehicle winch cables; this is strong enough to do serious damage to an elephant. We did not manage to apprehend any poachers throughout the operation. Snaring in the area is still very high, the rains this year have been late but as the month comes to an end we are happy to see that there has been sufficient rain throughout the month and so we hope to see an improvement in snaring levels for December.

Report by David Njoroge.