Participants

James Mbuthia- Team leader David Njoroge – Assistant Team Leader John Malonza - Tracker Mutiso – Car Guard James Naikoi– KWS Sameto - KWS Masaku Mbanga – In camp

Findings

A total of 268 snares were collected this month, all of which were designed to catch smaller animals such as Dikdiks. The majority of snares, 196, were found around Mtito Town, possibly due to the high concentration of poachers moving in and out of the area. Mtito town has a large amount of poachers that come from all over the country; they often stay for a few weeks and then return home or move to another town where they can sell on their bush meat. Our community projects do not work with these people, as they are not around for very long. We have over the last few years managed to gather quite a large amount of intelligence, which we will be using, to track poachers in the area. This year we aim to change our technique quite a bit and have more ambushes in poacher hotspots. Unfortunately with the lack of rain at the end of the year, poaching is again on the rise, we will be working harder until the rains finally arrive. Community

On the 31st of January Safaricom donated a field trip into the park, Matulani primary benefited from this one and as it was a first time for them the children and teachers were very pleased indeed. We also donated 450-neem tree seedlings to the schools for them to start or add on to the tree planting projects. This month with the schools opening again we organized a number of football matches between the schools again, I think that this is very beneficial to the community and it makes the children begin to trust our motives a little bit more. Report by James Mbuthia by James Mbuthia