De-snaring report December 2004

Participants

Wambua Kikwatha- Team leader Feisel Muteti – Munywoki Kisangi – Mwoni Ikuthu – KWS rangers

TOTAL SNARES COLLECTED 587

Findings

This month marked the onset of the rainy season. As usual during the rains activities in the park are reduced, however the snaring this December is significantly higher than last year. Perhaps this is a result of the drought that preceded the rains which were extremely late this year. Out of the 587 snares collected this month only a few were designed to capture larger mammals. The majority of snares were along the park boundary, once moving away from the boundary and deeper into the park we found that the snaring levels declined. Towards the end of the month we joined up with extra rangers and moved into the Umbi and Lugga and the Kugu area. This is a high security area in terms of there being a large amount of poaching, however this month we found very little evidence of that. Perhaps though the poachers in the area are operating at night or have even moved. There were nevertheless lots of signs of human activities; plenty of foot prints were seen as well as evidence of honey harvesting. With the heavy rain that we have had here in Ithumba we have found it difficult to access certain areas, mainly because of the mud but also due to the thickness of the bush. Let’s hope that 2005 sees a decrease in poaching in all the areas that the teams patrol.

Report by Wambua Kikwatha