May 01 2008
37 Thomson Gazelles killed by poachers
At 3am Wednesday morning, rangers from Ngiro-are Outpost saw torches east of their post along the border, which was an obvious sign that poachers were hunting Thomson Gazelles.
The approach to the hunting area was difficult since it was very far and a vehicle must be used. Driving without lights on is not an easy tusk, because of the tall grass but it the was only option for these Rangers to make any formidable success. They left their base and drove slowly towards the poachers’ route, where on their way they met accidentally with another group of poachers who were heading back to the villages, carrying heavy loads of killed gazelles. Immediately a chase ensued and the Rangers managed to arrest one poacher but the rest disappeared into the dark.
Rangers at Ngiro-are
According to information from the arrested poacher, this group was nine and they had killed nine gazelles which were all collected by the Rangers. He further informed them of another different group of poachers which were still out hunting. This prompted the Rangers to design an ambush in a strategic location at the bottom of the escarpment, where they knew the poachers would pass and so arrests could be made. It was also a place where the poachers would arrive by dawn, and be more easily seen.
For sure the plan worked, and by 6.30am poachers were heard talking half a kilometre away and were heading straight towards the ambush. As they got closer, one of the dogs got the Rangers’ scent and barked, but before they realised the ambush Rangers charged and immediately caught two of the men. The rest of the Rangers kept the chase and later managed to arrest another three men, making a total of five arrested as well as recovering another 28 killed gazelles, bringing the total to 37 in just one night.
These poachers were aged between 17 and 35 years, hunting with more than 10 dogs, trained to catch the gazelles and also to run away when their owners do. One of the poachers arrested said that they wanted to take advantage of the incident on Monday when our ranger was shot, thinking that our men would be too scared to patrol.
That morning saw our men make an incredible success in arresting six poachers. They were all handed to the Tanzanian park authorities who took them to Tarime police station for prosecution. The gazelles were also taken as exhibits.
The months we are in now it is so difficult for the Conservancy to finance it’s crucial activities due to lack of funds. It is already the middle of the off season with very few tourist coming, which means no money. Despite all these problems, we are very thankful for your support and donations which we have received so far and has seen us through to this point.
Our appeals for help are as before, because things are becoming more and more difficult, and if support is not availed we risk loosing this precious park and it’s beautiful animals.
Thomson Gazelles and ostriches, taken today.
Click here to receive the latest updates to your email inbox. We promise, no spam.
18 responses so far
Powered by FireStats
37 seems like so many - but catching the men is great news –
they are so beautiful - it hurts to know they hunt them down with dogs and kill them so easily –
It’s an abuse of animals, all way around - wildlife, dogs and human animals. It must be disheartening day after day, but please don’t give up. You’re the only ones standing between Kenya’s wildlife and those who would destroy everything.
s.
Great work
I hope in the return of tourist in the next time.
of course i come to the mara in the next months!
so many tommies were taken out just on one night. can one imagine how many over a period of time. if it continues, there goes all the tommies on whom the lions, leopards and especially the cheetahs depend on to survive. naturally it is fatal to the tommies too. and using dogs to chase them down is just cruel for dogs only gang the poor animal up one by one and tear them apart alive.
rangers did great work as usual. hope the tourists will return quickly and in great number. can the kenyan government help out financially? and send in more help to work along side with you?
what will happen to the meat? put them back to the wild and let the animals feed on it?
Please, keep up the hope and your continuous brave work. Thanks.
you have my respect, appreciation and of course $ support. keep fighting! great work on nabbing the poachers…thanks so much for your diligence and dedication. i’m fairly new to this blog, and i’ve already been moved by the great accomplishments of you and your fellow rangers of mara.
just wondering…maybe we blog readers can organize a letter-writing campaign to animal planet and bbc, to ask that they do a commercial or make an announcement when big cat diaries airs to raise donations for mara? if anyone is interested, please post here.
I am very happy to have made a donation and will be following progress in the Mara conservancy. However, I wish some sort of strategy to reduce human population growth in the vicinity of the Mara, and in East Africa more generally, could be found.
jeremy, the endless human demands and taking of the land, water and other natural resources are the greatest enemies for all wildlife . but how can any one or any other country tell these native people how to run their lives? there are programs to enhance the health of women and children; and rid of malaria or other diseases. before bush and while clinton in power, the u.s. government did have a program to educate the women on their reproductive health. but sadly the right wing or born again religion is gaining more influence. and their view on the independence of women is not too encouraging.
as they say, when the status of women/girls raise, children and the environment will also be better off. don’t you think proverty or desperation causes poaching? these folks want to eat meat that they normally cannot afford. turn them into vegeterians? doubt it!
scarlet,
the producer of the big cats diary is : lizzie bewick and her email address: lizzie.bewick@bbc.co.uk
she usually will answer her email. and she did say the big cats team will be back to the mara this year for another season of the show.
Sauwah, great commentary and thanks for Lizzie’s email address. I’ll write a letter this weekend.
sauwah,
thanks very much for the e-mail. anyone who wants to can write a letter, but also maybe you might want to draw up a template for others to email? like, all the folks in your email list, people who have bought merchandise on the site, and those who receive wildlife direct’s newsletter?
Hi,
Thanks a lot for a good website and also for all the commentaries on the different wildlife-issues. However it looks like it is very easy to feel sad for the “poor” animals and at the same time wish that the poachers “can rot in prison or hell” or something similar (according to one blogger some time ago).
I tend to feel that Sauwah made a god point when she/he writes”…don’t you think poverty or desperation causes poaching? these folks want to eat meat that they normally cannot afford. turn them into vegeterians? doubt it!…”
I have lived more than ten years in the vicinity (20-30km) from the Siria-escarpment and I have learnt to know the people (tribe) who are most common in poaching in that area.
Very few of them have even had the luxury to wiev the game in the park and if they get to know them it is when the animals spoil their crops.
I am not defending the poachers but I can see that there is another side to the picture as well.
Then as Jeremy wishes “…However, I wish some sort of strategy to reduce human population growth in the vicinity of the Mara, and in East Africa more generally, could be found…” To me this sound a bit of a paternalistic way of looking at people and their lives.
Thanks Gson, for addressing some issues that have made me feel a bit uneasy about this blog. Some time ago I even read a comment about poachers saying, “there’re other ways to make a living”. Really? What are those?
How can poor people living close to wildlife be treated with respect as mayor stakeholders when it’s so clear that people with money and generosity always prioritise wildlife? I’d be ashamed of preaching “being good to animals” to people who endure such serious wildlife problems for so little in return when in my country there’s very little wildlife left and a bear that comes too close to where people are living always gets shot. The problems in the Mara seem unsolvable. I suppose the only thing I can do is to make a donation, which is a problem for someone as stingy as I. I’ve made a couple of really small ones and the donation functions here on Wildlifedirect stress me out as I have to keep an almost zero-spending lifestyle to afford my extremely expensive Kenya addiction. My priorities are me, myself, wildlife and maybe some other people if they are Kenyan. I could say that my spending as a tourist benefit both two- and four-legged Kenyans, but I know that the best thing I could do is to stay at home and send the money. Especially as the problems with global warming will probably soon make the ones we are discussing here seem quite tiny. That’s another aspect: let the one with the smallest ecological footprint throw the first stone!
Thanks everyone for your comments. I wish to answer some of the questions asked.
Sauwah- you may mean the government send in more personnels to boost our strength? The Masai Mara triangle is managed by the County council of Trans-Mara who delegated the job to Mara Conservancy. We have enough strength at the moment to carry out the work but we are appealing for funds to finance the operations, which I think the government may not be in a position to provide.
Most of the meat from the 37 gazelles was taken to the police as exhibits to strengthen the case against the poachers. The remaining was destroyed by burning. Since dogs were used to maul down the gazelles, they may be carriers of the rabies virus, and can easily transmit the disease to our canids and felids.
For the interest of all, many of these poachers come from across the border into the Mara Triangle just to poach wildlife, and due to being in a different country we can do very little to try and change their lifestyles. It should be understood that many communities have destroyed most of the wildlife habitats in most parts of East Africa to get enough land for growing crops. Most of the land was forests and wetlands, which were very important in enhancing rainfall circles and river sources. Now there is not enough rainfall to sustain crops, and they are again encroaching conservation areas in the name of poverty. This is something which must be given a priority by all those in leadership, not Rangers alone.
For the communities like the Maasai, they should also come in terms pertaining the conservation of wildlife and cattle rearing. They are now able to earn much money from tourists coming to see these wild animals. So to maximize these earnings, they must give animals a priority in their lives and give security and land.
Most of the local people living in the vicinity of Game Reserves and National Parks in Africa (let’s speak here about Africa only) are poor people, trying to make their living everyday in a country that is, and for many reasons, unable to guarantee them some decent life conditions so they make it as they think they can, and poaching, even illegal and risky, remains as an opportunity to get both money and food. Those people like millions and millions of people in Africa are just stuck in poverty the same way the previous generations have been before them and for decades. They also know they have been given, like their children one life to live, not two, just one and quite shortened due to conditions. So when someone is barely able to feed his whole family just because he cannot afford to buy some food (and shall we not even mention him sending his children to school), how could we possibly blame him ?
To me, we are now facing days that bring the high drama to the very hotspot between human needs and Wildlife to coexist, to the very hotspot probably more than ever before. While our “rich countries” and individuals claim for making more money by all means, while political troubles can lead people from the same country to suddenly kill each other, while every government is now individually racing for getting the biggest piece of the cake before thinking about saving the cake, while most of the African countries are stuck in corruption and poverty and while … and while and while and while … BE IT KNOWN that for 25,- euros, you can enjoy here in Paris, France, a 20mn resting time so that you can kill a little stress in a very quiet single room, surrounded with soft music, before returning to your office.
Almost 1,00 euro for a sixty seconds peace of mind … Then how could we blame those people ? I do not know my fellows and friends … I do not know.
I have been travelling in Africa for almost a decade now because I have always and deeply felt that I wanted to and needed to go. My first contact with Wildlife years ago has definitely
revealed a strong link, a kind of need to go there and see and understand its rules. Every time
I have been there, it was like meeting some “peoples”, people of the Lions, of the Elephants, of the Wildebeest …
Then and like many, I took the “bug”, the one that makes Wildlife deeply live in your heart. Africa, the place where all things may have started …
For us not any single gazelle, not any hippo nor any lion and whatever creature should be poached nor killed but for them and regarding to their situation, it is just free meat.
When I was in the Great Serengeti in February, the car met a whole pride of lions in the Moru Kopjes area, a whole and strong pride that was resting in the green grass, starring at some zebras and gazelles grazing far away. While the cubs were playing with sub adults, one cub was grooming with his mother with much tenderness, a couple of silver-backed jackals was chasing some vultures away from an old carcass and white headed buffalo weavers were obviously having some words in a thick bush. A magic moment like all of us here probably had the privilege to enjoy.
Then I could not help myself but think about the way this little male lion would be able to survive human oppression and expansion and become once a powerful and magnificent creature, heading his way everyday for hours to check out the boundaries of his territory, and at sunset, stop for a while, giving an amber look at his own kingdom before returning to the pride.
I will carry on making donations as long as I am able to. We have to carry on making donations my friends, because we have been there, we have seen it and if our donations allow
those brave and so devoted rangers to guarantee the protection of this little lion cub until he becomes a powerful male reigning over his kingdom, then maybe, maybe our children will once be able to experience this Wildlife Eternity.
Vincent
Thanks Vincent for such a long story about life in the wildest parts of Africa.Just imagine loosing these areas to human destruction like any other areas which were very important wildlife habitats but now no more. We need a more strong political and social will to bring about a cohesive human and wildlife existence.
At the present, the whole issue is left squarely to Wildlife Managers, who are actually servants to the higher authorities.We are just implementing or executing rules and orders, but are not capeable of creating new ideas to put all the communities on board, as far as benefits allocation are concern.