Category: Poachers | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: Kimojino

Questionnaire #2

Village:

Level of Education: Not educated

Marital Status: Married

Tribe:                                     Age: 49

1. What wildlife species do you mostly hunt?

Wildebeest and Thomson Gazelles

2. How often do you hunt?

Weekly

3. What are the reasons for you to hunt?

Protein source, income, and lack of food at home.

4. Who are your main customers?

People in the village.

5. What is your mode of selling bushmeat?

House to house.

6.  Which specific areas do you sell bush meat?

7. Which season do you mostly prefer to hunt?

Dry Season (June - November)

8. What time do you prefer to hunt?

Night.

9. How has the hunt and success rate change over the past five years.

Difficult, and less successful.

10. What happens when you’re caught?

Taken to court.

11. What tools do you commonly use for hunting?

Bow & Arrow, Dogs, Snares and Spears.

12. How do you transport bushmeat from hunting site to the village?

Using head.

13. How much do you sell a kilogram of bushmeat?

200 Kenyan Shillings (US $3.30)

14. Please name the places that illegal hunting for bushmeat occurs?

15. What health implications have you known related to bushmeat consumption?

Stomach complications and Malaria complications.

16. Are there any wildlife conservation awareness programs in your area?

Yes.

17. If yes, how often.

Quarterly

18. Have you ever been arrested?

No.

19. If yes, how many times?

N/a

20.  Do you have other sources of income?

No.

21. If yes, what is your major source of income?

22. What do you think are the alternatives to the hunting for bushmeat?

Doing business at home, looking for employment, doing farming at home. 

Questionnaire #3
Village:

Level of Education: Class 1 (up to 4 yrs old)

Marital Status: Married

Tribe:                                     Age: 35

1. What wildlife species do you mostly hunt?

Wildebeest

2. How often do you hunt?

Not often.

3. What are the reasons for you to hunt?

Income.

4. Who are your main customers?

People in the village.

5. What is your mode of selling bushmeat?

House to house.

6.  Which specific areas do you sell bush meat?

7. Which season do you mostly prefer to hunt?

Migration period of the wildebeest.

8. What time do you prefer to hunt?

Day and Night.

9. How has the hunt and success rate change over the past five years.

Difficult, and less successful.

10. What happens when you’re caught?

Taken to court.

11. What tools do you commonly use for hunting?

Snares and Spears.

12. How do you transport bushmeat from hunting site to the village?

By use of pundas (donkey).

13. How much do you sell a kilogram of bushmeat?

500 Kenyan Shillings (US $8)

14. Please name the places that illegal hunting for bushmeat occurs?

15. What health implications have you known related to bushmeat consumption?

Doesn’t provide good health, not good for stomach.

16. Are there any wildlife conservation awareness programs in your area?

No.

17. If yes, how often.

N/a

18. Have you ever been arrested?

No.

19. If yes, how many times?

N/a

20.  Do you have other sources of income?

Yes.

21. If yes, what is your major source of income?

Mineral mining and crop (maize) farming.

22. What do you think are the alternatives to the hunting for bushmeat?

Crop Farming.

8 responses so far

Category: Poachers | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: Kimojino

The three poachers arrested this afternoon.

As those who have been following the twitter updates know, rangers this morning arrested three poachers near Sand River. The poachers had killed a total of six wildebeest.

In our office we have some questionnaires that were left for us by a student at the college of African Wildlife Management in Mweka, Tanzania, which were to be filled in by poachers arrested by our rangers.

Some of you on twitter showed interest in the answers and so we have published the questionnaires so you can find out more. For confidentiality purposes we have left out some of the answers.

Village:

Level of Education: Standard 7 (up to age 16)

Marital Status: Single

Tribe:                                     Age: 16

1. What wildlife species do you mostly hunt?

Wildebeests

2. How often do you hunt?

One time hunter.

3. What are the reasons for you to hunt?

Income.

4. Who are your main customers?

People in the village.

5. What is your mode of selling bushmeat?

House to house. Buyers also come for the meat in our house.

6.  Which specific areas do you sell bush meat?

Sometimes when the meat supply is sufficien, middle men.

7. Which season do you mostly prefer to hunt?

Dry Season (June - November)

8. What time do you prefer to hunt?

Day and night.

9. How has the hunt and success rate change over the past five years.

No answer.

10. What happens when you’re caught?

Sometimes depending on an individual, fines are imposed by the police.

11. What tools do you commonly use for hunting?

Snares.

12. How do you transport bushmeat from hunting site to the village?

Carry by ourselves.

13. How much do you sell a kilogram of bushmeat?

Sell by piece as dried, eg. a piece cost KSh 500 (US $8)

14. Please name the places that illegal hunting for bushmeat occurs?

15. What health implications have you known related to bushmeat consumption?

No answer.

16. Are there any wildlife conservation awareness programs in your area?

No.

17. If yes, how often.

N/a

18. Have you ever been arrested?

No.

19. If yes, how many times?

N/a

20.  Do you have other sources of income?

Yes.

21. If yes, what is your major source of income?

Agricultural activities.

22. What do you think are the alternatives to the hunting for bushmeat?

Agriculture, Bussiness (Hawking of clothes, maize), and cattle rearing or keeping.

3 responses so far

Category: Donations, Poachers | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: Kimojino

Thank you everyone for your donations last month. As you can see from yesterday’s post we’re not yet out of the crisis and so still need your support.

Please, if you can, consider a monthly donation to the Mara Triangle so that we can plan better for the following months.

Rangers just brought these poachers in about half an hour ago. They were three in total and had killed six wildebeest. During these next few months we need your support to continue with anti-poaching and de-snaring patrols. 

1 - 7th June

Open Donations:

Amy - $40; Brian - $100; Flora - $200; Jawrence - $10; Stephen S. - $100

Monthly Donations:

Kumiko - $20; Maria - $10; Mark - $10; Miho - $100; Pruet - $30; Robin - $15; Theresa - $25; Toshie - $20

Total for 1 - 7th June: $680

8 - 14th June

Open Donations:

Alicja - $40; Anon - $30; Anon - $100; Calixto - $10; Colleen - $100; Craig - $1,000;  Hirofumi - $100; Igmar - $20; Jacquelin - $50; Jeremy - $100; Joshua - $20; Jun - $200; Mda - $100; Pirjo - $100

Monthly Donations:

Alan - $20;  Eric - $15; Deborah - $50; Gay - $20; Gloria - $20; Michelle - $20;

Total for 8 - 14th June: $2,115

15 - 21st June

Open Donations:

Beth - $50; Josh - $50; Michael - $20; Richard - $25; Vincent - $100; Wanda - $20

Monthly Donations:

Alexandra - $10; Dr. D. - $30; Kathleen - $20; Julia - $25;

Total for 15 - 21st June: $350

22nd - 30th June

Open Donation:

Darya - $100; John - $20; Kari - $100; John - $100; Oliver - $25; Rosalind - $50;

Monthly Donation:

Dave - $20; Jo - $25; John - $10; Julia - $10; Laura - $10; Liana - $25; Shirley - $100; Sixten - $5;

Total for 22 - 30: $600

Grand Total for June: $3,745

2 responses so far

Category: An Urgent Appeal, Great Migration | Date: Jul 03 2008 | By: William

Wildebeest on the opposite hill in Serengeti.

Tourist projection for the month of July and August is 50% occupancy.  For the rest of the year it is expected to fall back to 20% like it has been up until now. This means that our situation will remain dire until 2009, however this is not an appeal for money (although if you have some it will help a lot) but instead we need ideas on how to fundraise for the long term. We thought that things would improve, which they have slightly, but unfortunately not as much as we had hoped.

I went out with Kimojino this morning to see the wildebeest massing on the Serengeti side. I have yet to see the great migration and only saw the ends of it when I was here setting up the Mara Triangle blog in November last year. There were just a few hundred of the wildebeest left in the Triangle, leaving in long lines like trails of smoke from an extinguished fire.

Today we left before dawn and carried out an anti-animal harassment patrol from Serena to Mara Bridge. Naitoi and Kimojino have handed out a few fines these past couple of weeks and it was impressive to see the drivers now behaving. In fact they were polite and courteous, which unfortunately was not often the case. We will continue to build on our relationship with the drivers, and we are pleased that the Travel Foundation have started a Most Responsible Safari Guide 2008 Award.

Kimojino and I will be putting up the posters at park gates and also in the staff canteens of the surrounding lodges.

This morning as we approached Mara Bridge we could see large amounts of wildebeest massing in the Serengeti (see photo above), and crossed over into Narok side to where they were also gathering at the Sand River.

Wildebeest and Zebra taking water at Sand River.

We were quite far away so these pictures are at the end of a zoom, but we also managed to take a video - click here to see it.

It’s quite an incredible sight; the whole hill opposite was covered in wildebeest and the noise was, well, much more melodic than the zebras who were coming in from the North the other week.

So it looks like the Song of the Wildebeest will be crossing into the Mara soon. When it does, we’ll be sure to let you all know.

8 responses so far

Category: Cattle Rustlers | Date: Jul 01 2008 | By: Kimojino

This morning at 1:30am we received a phone call by one of the men who works for Earthview, John Saaya, to inform the security team that cattle rustling is taking place on the escarpment, and that they suspected the cattle to be driven across the park to Tanzania.

We coordinated with the Ngiro-are team and laid an ambush on both sides of Ngiro-are Stream. By then there was sporadic gunfire at the top of the escarpment near Kerinkani area, and we knew that these people were armed with automatic weapons. We suspect AK47s. We orientated ourselves to where the rustlers would pass and waited for almost one and a half hours.

After this time, the Ngiro-are team heard some movement about 100 metres away from them, just along the edge of the riverine forest. Immediately they tried to ascertain what was causing the movement and concluded there was cattle in the vicinity.

They started opening fire, but there was no fire returned by the rustlers. Instead they fled from the area leaving behind the cattle. It was impossible to follow the men because the land was covered by total darkness.

We retrieved 15 cattle, and the Maasai on the escarpment also recovered 6 cattle when exchanging fire. There are 5 very large oxens which are still missing. But we don’t think that they came down the escarpment, we believe the group was divided.

Rangers, and community with retrieved cattle this morning.

In this case the rustlers removed 50 cows, and split the cows into two groups. One of the groups had the 5 oxen, which are extremely valuable at about 18,000 Shillings. Then all of the other cows would be taken on another route to cause a diversion and eventually leave behind without a fight because they know they still have the most valuable of the cattle. 

Rangers from Ngiro-are are still working with the community to track the missing oxen.

Rangers and community. 

5 responses so far