Project period 5th-31st of January

Isaac Maina. Jacob Dadi. Sammy Odero. Samuel Lotukoi Mutua Koti Alden Jarison- K.W.S Rangers George Kileiya- KWS Ranger

Findings

The start of the year was very disappointing for the Burra team, with a total of 1537, the largest amount we have ever collected in one operation.

On the first few days of the operation we managed to rescue and release two Dikdiks, we lost one that broke the snare and ran away and found another two, which had been killed in snares.

The operation started in Ndii where we managed to collect a total of 108 snares, all of them made for small game, and later on in the operation we collected a further 227 in the same area. In Irima we only collected 6 snares which is fantastic and we can assume that the arrest of a poacher in the area was a deterrent to even the optimistic poacher. Another factor which may be a cause for the decline in snaring is the fact that we removed the 160km of railway line in the area which would have other wise been used to make snares. Between Ndii and Manga hill on the community side we recovered 101 snares and sadly in the area of Kyamweli we collected an astounding 310 snares. This is an area where game moves through and so is an obvious place to set snares. A total of 543 snares were collected in this area. Another area of concern is Sagalla ranch where we removed 837 snares, most of the snares were for smaller game, snares made from the burning of discarded tyre treads and 44 of the 837 were designed for larger animals. The number of snares recovered at this time I can only put it down to the failure of the rains at the end of the year which forced people to turn to snaring in order to eat. However the rains finally came in the middle of January and so we can only hope that February will bring a reduction in the amount of snares that we will collect.

Report by Isaac Maina.