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Poachers take to poisoning jumbos
By Guardian on sunday correspondent
17th June 2012



If a poacher guns down any wildlife animal there is a chance the gunshot will be heard by game warden, and that places him at risk of being traced.

Now, a new poaching strategy has been crafted - poisoning. This strategy is meant to kill an animal without seeking to use the meat.

Wiping out elephants in Tanzania’s wildlife reserves is back in full swing as poachers have been killing close to two dozen jumbos for their tusks each month through poisoning.

Reports say the suspects were nabbed at Mbulumbulu Village in Karatu District while allegedly plotting to kill elephants through poisonous pumpkins and watermelons, a short distance from the conservation area.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) acting conservator Shaddy Kyambile, said the suspects had intended to use poisoned watermelons and pumpkins to kill elephants. “Game rangers on patrol set a trap and arrested the suspect at Sahata River,” he told reporters in Ngorongoro on Tuesday. “This is the third incident involving suspected poachers using poison to kill animals,” he stated.

According to Kyambile, it takes about five hours for a poisoned elephant to die after eating the pumpkins or watermelons laced with chemicals.

Another official, Amiyo Amiyo, said an elephant suspected to have been poisoned, collapsed and died at the NCAA gate late last month.

Recently, 14 elephants were found dead near Lake Manyara National Park and it was suspected that the jumbos were poisoned.

In April, poachers poisoned eight rare elephants near Tarangire national park in western Arusha, raising the death toll of jumbos to 87 in four months. Wildlife officials say for about four years a well-organized group of poachers has run amock in various national parks, slaughtering elephants for ivory to sell in markets in the Far East.

Ms Nebo Mwina, Acting Director of Wildlife, says between 2008 and 2012 poachers have killed a total of 776 elephants in various national parks. Ms Mwina says that way back in 2008 poachers killed 104 elephants, while in 2009 and 2010 they slaughtered 127 and 259 jumbos respectively.

In 2011 poachers were responsible for killing 276 and 2012 up to mid April they have decimated 87 elephants.

“This trend is caused by a sharp rise in the appetite for wildlife trophies, particularly elephant ivory in Vietnam and China,” Mwina explained. It is understood that the country spends $75,000 annually to secure its stockpile of 12,131 tusks – weighing 89,848.74 kg worth $12 million in the Asian markets.

The price for raw elephant tusk in China for instance has tripled in the past year from around $270 a pound to $900 a pound.

Ivory has long been a status symbol in China, but Grace Gabriel of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, who grew up in Beijing, says China's growing purchasing power is driving demand for everything from elephant ivory to rhino horn.

The price of rhino horn is around $55 000 a kg, making it far more expensive than gold, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

The elephants seem to be slowly replacing rhinos as one of the most endangered wildlife species.

"This is a stark reminder of the 1970s deadly elephant poaching, where well-armed poachers with sophisticated weapons decimated jumbo populations, often with impunity," says African Wildlife Foundation executive director Saleh John. He says it is high time for the surrounding communities to partake in wildlife protection and war against poaching.

Natural Resources and Tourism minister, Khamis Kagasheki is on record as saying that poaching has reached deadly proportions mainly because of limited resources on the part of the government.

“We need around $77 million in budget funds per year to be able to ensure that our all national parks are foolproof, but to the contrary the current budget stands at $38 million annually,” an expert with Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) said on condition of anonymity.

Tumaini University Makumira’s dean of the Faculty of Law, Elifuraha Laltaika doesn’t think so.

An Environmental Law lecturer, he says state thinking is to militarize wildlife protection against poaching, which is far more expensive and short term.

“If the community in and around wildlife protected areas meaningfully benefits from the resources, I believe, they will fight poaching at a cheaper and more sustainable manner,” Laltaika says.

Leading researcher on lions in Africa, Prof. Craig Packer has a different version, saying with the current wave of the elephant killings, the authority needs to fence some of the national reserves.

The menace has grown into a national malady that last year warranted President Jakaya Kikwete to sanction the deployment of army units to check poaching in game reserves.

"It appears poachers have overwhelmed game rangers. We need to deploy the army to curb the trend in all game reserves," Kikwete said.

The military was successfully used in the 1980s, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of poachers and the impounding of scores of weapons. "We are going to do the same," the president vowed.



SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY

Why can't poachers be shot on site and strung up for all to see?!

quote:

Leading researcher on lions in Africa, Prof. Craig Packer has a different version, saying with the current wave of the elephant killings, the authority needs to fence some of the national reserves.

He's not serious ? - A fence that will restrict an elephant's movements or that of a poacher?
If he is including any of the National Parks in the northern circuit with this half-baked theory he needs to have his head examined.

"It appears poachers have overwhelmed game rangers. We need to deploy the army to curb the trend in all game reserves," Kikwete said.

The military was successfully used in the 1980s, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of poachers and the impounding of scores of weapons. "We are going to do the same," the president vowed.

Now we're talking !

This year in Dande East we came across two poachers at a water hole and each had a backpack full of watermelons. They were able to escape and I'm sure they had the poison on their person. They just dumped the melons and ran. The anti-poaching teams are generally ineffective because the poachers are relatives. The need for white supervised para military anti poachers with shoot on site orders are a must.

Maybe a new type of safari? No bag limits or trophy fees.

Fence. Forget it.

http://www.rhinoark.org/our-pr...about-the-fence.html

Takes forever to finance and build and minutes to break down.

Fujo and Milo,

I hear what you are saying but there are some circumstances where a "fence" will have a practical application on the ground. It does not need to ba a "traditional fence" which is much more costly to erect and administer.

For example, we operate in Maswa Game Reserve on the boundary of the Serengeti. Our Eastern boundary is choker block full of settlements, right up to within inches of the actual reserve boundary. The biggest threat to that reserve and thereafter, the Serengeti, is the habitat degradation by livestock which is eating away at the Reserve. A few decades ago, the "encroachment" was soo severe and left unchecked that a portion of the reserve had to be excised as it was ploughed and inhabited. I would personally argue for a "cattle proof" fence along that Eastern boundary, in the form of a 20mm steel cable at "hip height" with the sole purpose to keep cattle out! I'm hoping the cable would be thick enough to prevent people from cutting it with crude cable cutters (In the hope that they would not afford or bother with electrical grinders or gas torches ). There is no wildlife migration and very limited wildlife at all in proximity of the settlements - a few baboons, mongoose and monkeys is what is exepcted. The meat and skin poaching is fairly controlled, I dare say, so would not be the intention of the "fence"

While I hate the idea of fencing wildlife areas, I can see some application in specific cases that merits further research.

Mich,

A 20mm steel cable may well resist the weight of an elephant up to a point. The pillars supporting the cable would also have to be embedded in concrete at short intervals to support a charge. Who is going to pay for a project that is going to end up as a White Elephant?....the Game dept.?... Friedkin might but I don't see many others doing so.
And...at hip height as you say, will it keep an elephant on the other side of the cable?
Mich, I'm short and my hip is 2ft 6 " off the ground and in all honesty I don't see an elephant clearing that height without get entangled somewhere
Ask Gerard Miller the problems he had with his electric fence - in the end he had to construct a ditch to break the charge all around his perimeter and not from elephants either.

I still reckon another 'Operation Uhai' might be the more economically viable and effective solution to the problem. It worked before but because everyone was happy with the outcome, never bothered to keep "mowing the lawn" and allowed it to turn into an unkempt field again.

P.S. Bolt cutters will cut that cable like snapping a cheese cracker and they don't cost much either - available in any hardware store.

Most African fencing projects just provide ample material for poachers to fashion into snares and contribute to more poaching while messing up natural game movement.