Participants

Wambua Kikwatha - team leader John Mungai Henry Lokochari Boru Okicha Nasarwa Esmgere Gerald Maghangha 2 KWS rangers

Area Covered

During the course of the month we carried out patrols at Lualenyi, Maktau, Taita Hills, Lumo and the Park boundary at Kishushe.

TOTAL SNARES COLLECTED 49

All the Sheldrick de-snaring teams once again underwent a rigorous training session that took place over a period of 5 days.

The training included, but was not limited to, map reading, patrolling, navigation, patrol formation and first aid. The training was aimed at enhancing and strengthening discipline, intelligence and data collection and logging as well as better patrolling methods.

Findings

Taita Hills and Lualenyi Sanctuary The Taita Hills Sanctuary has been a major concern to us due to the amount of snaring that has been noticed here in previous months where many snares have been lifted and a number of animals either rescued of found snared. The good news is that after a series of patrols in the area the amount of snaring has decreased drastically with only one animal, a buffalo being found snared in comparison to 15 large animals that were found snared in January.

Furthermore only 25 snares for large game were lifted which is a huge decrease fro the 106 snares found previously. After the rains it has been noticed that many animals have moved from the area in and around the Dam, which had become a poaching hotspot. We then moved to set up camp at Lualenyi where we were able to patrol the Lualenyi sanctuary. With the assistance of an informer we were able to lift 19 snares all of which had been set for large game.

Mkuki Ranch After carrying out patrols at Lulenyi and Taita Hills we moved our operations to Mkuki ranch for one night’s observation. We stayed at the observation point for the whole night and observed that there was a lot of night poaching taking place with the use of torches and pangas. An ambush was carried out in the morning but unfortunately the poachers took a route that was not covered.

Maktau Snaring in the Maktau area has decreased dramatically this month with only two old snares being found and lifted. Sadly however our sources have informed us that night poaching is on the increase.

Kishushe Park Boundary Following information that people from the Mghange area were night poaching at the Kishushe Park Boundary we carried out two night ambushes which unfortunately were not successful. We were also able to identify two possible routes that could be used by poachers to avoid our ambushes and evade arrest.

Report by Wambua Kikwatha