ZIWANI TEAM

De – Snaring Report for January 2005

Participants

Patrick Mutuku Josephat Ajiot Henry Lekochere Julius Mtamu Justin Kiminza 2 KWS rangers

Area Covered

Our areas of patrol this month were Kishushe, Lumo, Maktau, Salt lick, Murka and Ziwani

Snares collected 181

Findings

This month we changed our strategy by starting our patrols at kishushe and finishing with Ziwani area. Generally the level of snaring has reduced, but poachers have opted to poach at night (torch and horn method). Being still a wet season, the number of illegal activities have gone down but we anticipate next month which marks the start of dry spell to have many more. We managed to lift 181 snares, 101 were for big game while 80 were for small game, and one poacher was arrested while taking bush meat of a Duiker to Mgange market.

It was hard to know whether or not he was carrying bush meat as he had hidden it in a travelers bag. We booked him at Taveta police station. At Kishushe area we discovered a hideout which had 20 pieces of remains of Dikdik and one lesser Kudu, we then destroyed the hideouts. At Lumo and Maktau areas poaching activities are still very high. We found remains of an Impala in the Lumo area. We created several ambushes which turned out to be very successful, although at Salt lick where we made a joint ambush we never arrested the poachers. At Ziwani farm we found a new fence line where a zebra had been snared. We organized another ambush but the poachers never came back On the 3rd of January we were accompanied on our patrols by Susie Erick (Nation newspaper reporter). We patrolled Kishushe area together and she appreciated the work that we do. On the 10th of January up to the 13th we had a WSPA film crew who accompanied us. Although they were disappointed that they had been denied filming in the park by the KWS, we managed to patrol the Lumo wildlife Sanctuary as well as Kishushe again. In the end they were very happy to see what we are doing. We also managed to add in a visit to the Maktau primary school where we held an awareness talk with the wildlife club members. On the 17th of January we held a team leaders meeting together with the Senior KWS personnel at Voi and we discussed the way forward regarding de-snaring activities. We intend to create more wildlife awareness in the following months.

Report by Patrick Mutuku