Participants

David Njoroge Adan Abdi Samuel Lolkulochi Julius Mumo KWS rangers: Peter Eanai, Wilson Nangisa, Kiloku and James Macharia.

Areas Covered

The areas patrolled during this month were Tundai, Tiva, Kalomboto, the Tharakana area, Cotters camp area, Gazi and along the Athi river up to Mukwanima.

203 SNARES RECOVERED

Findings

This months operations were carried out at intervals together with road clearing and repairing activities. There was a lack of KWS rangers this month which meant that our operations were slightly hindered as we had to return to base after each de-snaring operation. Although we spotted human footprints there was very little evidence of human activity in the areas patrolled. We did however recover and lift a total of 203 snares most of which targeted small and medium sized animals.

As the number of rangers available decreased we decided to halt our de-snaring operations and begin clearing and repairing the road in the Gazi area. The road repairs covered a 70km stretch from Cotters camp in Mtito to the Gazi airstrip and were carried out together with the help of several casual workers.

The gradual deterioration of the roads in the Gazi area rendered the roads in such poor condition that our de-snaring operations were constantly being affected and hindered. The road repairs that the team were able to make are only a temporary solution. The roads need to eventually be properly graded so that the teams can have better accessibility to all areas of the park, thus bettering our de-snaring operations.

Once we had finished with the road repairs we resumed our de-snaring activities together with the assistance of KWS rangers who had come over from Tsavo West. We patrolled all along the Athi River which due to the rainy season was very swollen. For this reason snaring in the area has decreased as the poachers are unable to cross the river to set snares and evade arrest. We did however find a few snares targeting Hippos and Buffaloes that had been placed along the rivers banks. We noticed that there were very few poachers in the area and feel that this is due to our constant presence and movement during the road repairs. We laid an ambush to try and capture two poachers who were seen in possession of sacks attempting to cross the river. We were unable to apprehend them as they had heard us and had been alerted to our presence thus managing to get away before we could arrest them. Although snaring is still a problem in the area we feel that with frequent visits made by the de-snaring team any potential poachers will be kept at bay for fear of arrest.

Report by David Njoroge