Participants

Patrick Mutuku John Mungai Julius Mtamu Gerald Maghanga 2 KWS rangers

Area Covered

Our areas of patrol this month were Jipe, the Makatu area, Lumo, the Railway line, and Kishushe.

TOTAL SNARES COLLECTED 90

Findings

This month we revisited some of the previous months snaring hot spots. We found a large number of snares all of which had been set for large game. We have found that this month the number of snares has declined. This proves that the work we do and the effort we put in to collect and remove the snares is bearing fruit. However this does not mean that there is no poaching as night poaching has now become more popular. At both Jipe and Toba we found minimal human activity inside the park. Although there is still evidence of night poaching at Maktau a lot of big game has moved to this area, which could cause a decrease in the number of poachers as they are afraid of being killed by elephants. The mining at Kishushe has once again stopped. Thankfully the workers have not turned to poaching, which we feel is due to the stern warning that they were given by the management who assemble them every morning and remind them not to set any snares. We visited six schools as part of our community outreach and education initiative and awareness, as we feel that in order for our de-snaring activities to have long lasting effects we need to work hand in hand with the communities in the area. Due to the fact that the schools were still on Easter break there were no students around. However we were able to gather information on what were the most pressing issues and requirements that the different schools faced. We intend to carry out operations in the Chyulu region next month as there have been many reports of a lot of snaring activity in the area.

Report by Patrick Mutuku