Project period 3rd – 30th March

Isaac Maina. Mutua Koti Jacob Dadi. Sammy Odero. Phillip Kipkorir 2 K.W.S Rangers.

Findings

A total of 611 snares were lifted, one poacher was arrested in Ndii area while his colleague escaped. A lesser kudu was found snared and a dikdik was luckily rescued from a snare where she had been caught.

The exercise started in Mariwenyi area where 34 snares were recovered. Last month, 222 snares were recovered and two lesser kudus snared in this area making the number of lesser kudus found snared in this area three.

All 29 snares were small sized while 5 were aimed for medium sized animals. There were no signs of ‘after activities’ in this area on our revisit. Charcoal burning is a problem activity in this region. Charcoal kilns and lorry tracks are common in this area. Sagalla ranch was our next area of operation. The manager had previously informed us of the death of some of his livestock from the snares. A goat and a cow had been snared on different areas of the ranch. We lifted 281 snares of which 16 targeted big animals. A lesser kudu was found on a snare with fresh blood oozing from a sharp knife cut on the neck. Fresh footprints were found indicating that the poachers had started slaughtering the catch but had fled on hearing us arriving I the area. We followed the footprints for about 2 kilometers but unfortunately lost their trail soon after. Irima yielded 63 snares, of which 44 came from an area between the fence line and the railway line. No new activity was recorded on the inner side of Irima and all the snares recovered were remnant of previous sweep. A large variety of animals have flocked in the area, herds of Impala, Zebra, Giraffe, Buffaloes, Elephants, lesser kudu, dikdiks, Waterbucks and Ostriches have found returned. However there is an increase of snaring in Ndii and so we not only collected snares in the area, but we also laid an ambush in the hope that we would capture a poacher. By the second day we had capture one of two poachers, the other one unfortunately escaped. We managed to arrest one while the other escaped. Having spent some time talking to the poacher it became apparent that a large amount of theses people are poaching as they are desperate for food, while the minority are poaching for commercial reasons. However if these subsistence poachers manage to catch a large animal, the meat is then sold in the villages. The escape of the other poacher rang an alarm message to his colleagues thus no one dared to come back. Many of the snares were made from wires extracted from tires. A dikdik was rescued from a snare in this area. Kajire area concluded our month patrol with 97 snares being lifted in this area.

Compiled by Isaac Maina