Transition Island Blog

Conservationists in Kenya demanded on Monday that the government ban the pesticide carbofuran after five hippos died and four lions were paralyzed.

Rangers in the sprawling Maasai Mara game reserve found traces of the granular pesticide, which is used to kill insects in food crops, in the hippos’ bodies and in areas where they grazed. The sick lions had been feeding on the hippo carcases.

cheap, toxic, indiscriminate

Carbofuran is extremely toxic, cheap and freely available. Renowned Kenyan environmentalist Richard Leakey said urged the government to follow the example of Europe and the United States by banning its importation and sale.

“We believe there are significant human health concerns and environmental risks associated with using this chemical, which is widely abused because it is easily available over the counter,” Leakey said in a statement.

Carbofuran concerns were first raised in Kenya in the 1990s when it was reported to have killed huge numbers of birds and entered the human food chain. There have also been more recent cases of the pesticide being used intentionally to kill predators like lions and other wildlife. [read more]

poaching carnage

In 2003, it was discovered that the world’s biggest population of hippos had crashed by 95 per cent. Less than 30 years ago, more than 29,000 hippos lazed in the rivers and rainforest backwaters of the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now, after a decade of civil war, naturalists have returned to discover that just 1300 remain.

The Congo carnage may not be unique. In neighbouring Burundi, a recent census found that 200 hippos - two-thirds of the national population - had disappeared in the last five years.

“This is disastrous news for the hippo,” warns Susan Lieberman, species director at the conservation charity WWF. “Unless poaching is stopped, hippos will be threatened with extinction.”

Three years later, the danger of extinction was confirmed as The World Conservation Union (IUCN) put the hippo on the so-called “red list”.

good news

Recently, the rare and secretive pygmy hippo has surprised conservationists by turning up in photos taken with automatic cameras. The endangered animal was found this way by a team from the Zoological Society of London. Solitary and mainly nocturnal, it uses the dense jungle as cover and shuns even its own species except for mating. This may have helped it to survive the west African civil wars.

Dr Collen, Research Fellow, said: “The pygmy hippo is an extraordinary, mysterious creature that has almost never been seen in the wild. We were delighted to discover that a population still persists there, but remain highly concerned for the species, which continues to face significant threats from poaching and habitat degradation.” [read more]

meanwhle…

An orphaned baby hippopotamus has been adopted by a giant male century-old tortoise. In an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, Kenya, officials said the hippo, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down the second longest river into the Indian Ocean. He was then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him. [more photos]

opinion:
The tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’. It’s nice to see interpecies bonding beyod the pets we tend to take for granted. Our ability to destroy habitats, over-fish, poach and accidentally kill animals really places a responsibility to protect other species upon us.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Eco-News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.