AFTER THIS ARTICLE WAS POSTED IN THE AIR BOTSWANA'S MAGAZINE THE ANTI POACHING PATROLS HAVE TRIPLED ALL OVER BOTSWANA. I AM VERY PROUD TO HAVE BEEN INSTRUMENTAL IN MAKING THIS HAPPEN
ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I HOPE I CAN RAISE ENOUGH FUNDS TO PURCHASE UAV I NEED ANOTHER $40 000.00 . THIS WILL REVOLUTIONIZE PARK MANAGEMENT AND FACILITATION OF CATCHING THESE POACHERS IN THE ACT AS IT WILL BE PATROLLING AT NIGHT. PLEASE YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND DONATE SO I CAN MAKE THIS A REALITY
Due to difficulty im reading text due to download I copied the draft of article below magazine.
LEAD-IN: A chance encounter with an animal in distress brings to the fore complex issues surrounding the alarming rate of escalating human/wildlife conflict in Botswana
By: Linda Pfotenhauer
Photos by: Jessica Joy Pfotenhauer
The wounded animal convulsed repeatedly – every time a jolt of electricity went through its body. Saliva foaming at its bloodied mouth and nose, left leg injured and bleeding at the knee, it was heart-wrenching to watch its agony.
On and on this mini-electrocution went. The animal seemed too stunned to be able to get up and move away from the fence – to the point that we all thought it would succumb.Unbelievably, two school boys passing by picked up stones and threw them at the heaving animal. A man also passing by motioned that he wanted to put the animal’s meat into his mouth and eat it.Cars stopped. Passengers got out – some to stare in curiosity, others to laugh at the animal’s misery.We had been driving the main Kasane Road when we came across the scene – a huge male waterbuck, with massive horns, up against the Mowana Lodge electric fence, convulsing and unable to move.
Some passers-by said they had seen the animal there since morning. No one knew where it had come from or how it had got there, but it was likely it had walked up from the nearby floodplains of the Chobe River.We stationed our vehicle just in front of the animal and revved the engine, hoping this would prompt it to get up and away from the electric fence. It was clear, however, that it was too traumatized to move.
It was sinking fast and action had to be taken quickly.The town’s wildlife vet, and Department of Wildlife and National Parks’ (DWNP) honorary game warden, Dr. Clay Wilson, was called in, as were DWNP officials. Dr. Clay brought a large pick-up truck to transport the animal, and asked the DWNP officials to round up men to load the animal on the truck.Working quickly, Dr. Clay filled one syringe with M99 tranquilizer – to immobilize the animal, another with antibiotics, and another with painkiller and anti-inflammatory.
Wildlife officer Mr. Khan loaded a rifle, in case the The Waterbuck, page 2Animal decided to bolt - one charge with those huge horns could bring a deadly blow. Another DWNP official stood ready with a syringe loaded with an antidote.Just as Dr. Clay was about to dart the animal, it suddenly got up and started to run. The men followed in their vehicles and on foot, and when finally within shooting distance, took steady – and obviously very experienced aim – and shot. The waterbuck quickly went down, its muscles temporarily incapacitated so that it could not move. Time was then of the essence – the men and women had about 40 minutes before the drug would wear off.
Antibiotics, as well as painkiller and anti-inflammatory were injected; and the group of volunteers was called in to lift the animal into the pick-up truck. Subsequently, speed was then of the essence, as the vehicles tore through main street Kasane to get the animal safely into the nearby Chobe National Park. A well watered area near a small pan was chosen, antidote given, and seemingly in a magical moment, the great and beautiful animal had re-gained its strength, and was up and sauntering away – full of energy again.It was a happy – and heart-warming – ending to a story that epitomizes many aspects of the alarming, escalating human-wildlife conflict now taking place in many parts of Botswana.
With increasing human populations, and the accompanying encroachment of their settlements, cattle posts and farmlands on wildlife habitat, animals such as this waterbuck find themselves entrenched – and in some cases – electrocuted by fences meant to keep them out. And in many cases, the uninformed, unempathetic attitudes of local communities, such as those of the passers-by in this story, persist, despite years of environmental education in schools and many programmes run by conservation NGOs.“There is a tremendous amount of human-wildlife conflict. It’s all about people – the more people we have, the less land there is for animals. There is no doubt about it. It is extreme, and it is worsening,” says Dr. Clay.
Over a three month period, he and DWNP staff have personally witnessed two leopards shot dead (the farmers said they were threatening their dogs), a lion with its jaw shot off, approximately ten elephants allegedly trespassing farmers’ land shot dead, and multiple cases of animals caught in poachers’ snares. In all of these incidents, the animals were darted, treated, healed and released back into the park.Waterbuck, page 3Wildlife researchers working in northern – and other areas – of Botswana hold similar views about human-wildlife conflict in the country. “We have lost five collared elephants to human-elephant conflict,” says Dr. Michael Chase, director of the respected and long-standing NGO Elephants without Borders. “Wildlife-human conflict is a critical issue we need to address. We have very little time left to come up with active conservation measures.”
Says Dr. Gaseitsewe (‘Gas’) Masunga, DWNP officer in charge of Chobe District: “Human-wildlife conflict is increasing in terms of the number of incidents reported to DWNP, but probably not in terms of the number of fields/areas planted. Because of subsidies and other support from Government, the number and distribution of farmers and ploughing fields have increased, probably contributing to increased conflict.”Both subsistence and commercial crop production are equally affected by elephant damage, followed by damage to fruit trees. Within the first half of this year, DWNP has paid close to P50 000 to subsistence farmers for damages caused by elephants on a total area of about 14 hectares. Elephants, followed by buffalo, have been most involved in the conflict, especially within the Kasane/Kazungula development area. Elephants do come into the township at night and feed on people’s fruit trees and plants, and end up being shot at and killed by Kasane residents who have access to rifles.
The males, in particular, come into people’s yards, school compounds and the Mowana Lodge area in search of food. “What is worrisome is the increasing number of elephants killed by people and DWNP within Kasane Township,” said Dr. Masunga.Incidents of livestock predation by lions, hyenas and leopards are generally lower than those of crop damage. However, incidents of depredation on livestock by lions are prevalent in Pandamatenga, Lesoma, Kachikau, Satau and Parakarungu areas. Lions are killed in large numbers by farmers in Lesoma and Pandamatenga, says Dr. Masunga.
He notes that most of these lions come from Zimbabwe, which has protected areas adjacent to communal areas on the Botswana side. One positive development is that Mowana Lodge management, equally concerned as DWNP by the increasing number of elephants being killed, has recently re-erected the electric fence on the eastern side of the hotel property. This was the area the elephants were using to enter the Mowana grounds and then getting into townBuffalo also stray into the township and end up being trapped, snared or enveloped by developments that line the Chobe Riverfront.
Says Dr. Masunga, “People panic when they see lone or injured buffalo, and our The Waterbuck, page 4Efforts to remove these animals from the public eye sometimes result in the animal being killed, if it becomes aggressive.”The 1992 Wildlife and National Parks Act allow people to kill elephants to defend their property, but they are encouraged to scare them away first.
A July 2010 DWNP report indicates that 23 elephants were killed within the first half of 2010 in defense of property or human lives. Other species killed were buffalo (21), lion (3), leopard (2), hippo (3), warthog (4), and baboon (3).But conflict is only one side of a situation now nearing epidemic proportions. Poaching is seriously on the rise in the park and in areas adjacent to the parks and reserves. “I see evidence of poaching nearly on a daily basis,” says Dr. Clay. “We regularly see instances of snared elephants, buffalo, and impala – anything they can get their hands on. I don’t know who is doing the poaching, but it’s a fact it is happening.” Dr. Masunga concurs that poaching in the Chobe is on the rise and maintains that both foreigners and Batswana are involved: “I believe there is lot of poaching happening in the Chobe areas, even more than we are able to detect.”
Dr. Clay and DWNP officials have also seen elephants wounded or dead in the park, presumably shot by poachers. Fish poaching is another critical issue, as the death of an inordinate number of fish will have deleterious, potentially devastating, effects on the delicate balance of the river’s ecosystem. Namibian fish poachers stretch nets across the entire Chobe River, from the Namibian side to the Botswana side. (The law says they can only fish halfway across the river.) According to Dr. Clay, thousands of fish are caught daily, irrespective of size or species. Ironically, Batswana in Kasane go to the local market to buy these poached fish caught on their side of the river.
The demise of fish populations in the river will inevitably impact on the local economy, as well as tourism revenue. Raids on fish poachers are conducted by DWNP, Botswana Defense Force (BDF) and immigration officials, resulting in the confiscation of fishing nets; but the fish poaching continues.There are active Anti-Poaching Units attached to the BDF and DWNP, but against well armed poachers in the bush, their tasks seem daunting, as they must patrol vast tracts of remotely situated, uninhabited land.
Dr. Clay suggests more extensive poaching patrols, more stringent enforcement of park rules and harsher penalties for prosecuted poachers, the involvement of game lodges and guides in the reporting of poaching incidents, elephant-proof fencing of farmland, The Waterbuck, page 5And the greater use of technology, such as helicopter patrols and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) – “expensive but highly effective,” he points out.Dr. Masunga suggests that the BDF should increase their numbers in the air and on the ground in the Chobe region, especially in the hotspot areas; he also calls for increased collaboration between the two anti-poaching units: “Both the DWNP and BDF need to sit around the table and devise new and effective strategies to combat poaching.”The mitigation of human/wildlife conflict is a complex topic that by its very nature would involve multi-pronged, and inventive, approaches, including better fencing methods for agricultural lands, better kraaling for livestock, and perhaps most significantly devising projects and programmes to assist farmers to perceive wildlife as a valuable resource, one that would bring financial benefits from wildlife-based tourism.
Says Kevin MacFarlane, researcher at the Central Kalahari Lion Research Project, which addresses escalating farmer/predator conflict in the Kalahari: “Farmers must be recognized as stakeholders in the desert’s natural resources. As long as farmers perceive lions as value-less, and dangerous to their livestock, the conflict will persist. The only way this perception can change is for farmers to recognize the financial gain lions can bring to them through tourism; all other strategies are stop-gap and may only help alongside this integral aim.”
In the long-term, of course, conservation education, and instilling within young Botswana the ability to value, appreciate and love their wildlife heritage - recognizing the animals’ rights to exist alongside that of human beings - is critical. Whilst this is currently part and parcel of the country’s school curricula, the behavior of the two misguided boys towards the waterbuck in distress would seem to indicate that this needs to be intensified and improved. When that is achieved, in the next instance perhaps we would witness the two boys – concerned and empathetic towards the animal’s suffering – running to help it, instead of wishing to taunt and hurt it, making themselves part of the rescue operation that brought it safe and sound to its – and that of all the myriad species of Botswana’s extraordinary wildlife heritage – refuge, the magnificent Chobe National Park.
