Achievements, January to June 2008

This has been an extraordinarily busy period as the list of arrests and prosecutions reflect. The following are the main highlights for this period.

As a result of the 14 water scouts whom control water off take from the Karenkot river by irrigation fed cultivation, the Nchali swamp is slowly coming back to life, It has been transformed from a dust bowl into a wetland again and has been re-colonised by Hippo and Bohor Reedbuck. It is still only about one tenth of its original size but steadily growing.

This wetland has also greatly reduced crop raiding in the cultivation as wildlife now have easy access to water.

During the period under review, a total of 68 poachers and i were arrested and prosecuted. In many cases, the culprits have been found in possession of wire snares, hunting knives, hunting spotlights among other poaching and habitat destruction tools.

In March, 3 suspects, were arrested carrying about 200 kilos of illegally harvested sandel wood. They were transporting it from Mount Kenya to Tanzania when the Scouts arrested them as they passed through the ranch. The value of Sandelwood is currently standing at 2000/- per kilo….on a par with ivory.

The tracker dogs have been earning their keep and are now responsible for 12 arrests. The latest arrest was after thieves broke into a house at Mbirikani village. The dogs were called in, tracked the thieves to the main road where they used a motor bike to escape. The tracker team then put the dogs in their car and physically tracked the bike to where the pillion rider disembarked at Sinet village.. The dogs took over and tracked him to a house in the village and he was arrested.

A rare incident took place on 27^th May 2008. Early in the morning, it was reported that a elephant calf had been abandoned by its mother at Mboonjo village., the calf, by strange coincidence took refuge in a cattle boma owed by Martine - one of the senior game scouts. The game scouts were mobilized to protect the elephant while arrangements were made with David Sheldrick Trust to air-lift the elephant calf to Nairobi, where it is doing well. Thanks to David Sheldrick trust for this text book evacuation

On 8^th June, the game scouts carried out a joint operation with KWS at Makindu town along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway and arrested 5 people in possession of a leopard skin.

In January Tusk Trust gave the game scouts’ project a major boost by providing a grant of US$ 70,000 to purchase a Super Cub aircraft from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. The aircraft is now operational and is currently being used to assist in aerial surveillance, anti-poaching and other conservation related activities within Mbirikani as well as the neighboring Amboseli and Chyulu National parks.  This is a milestone in the history of the project and it is expected to improve the efficiency of our operations significantly.

There were no reported incidents of poachers targeting Rhino in this period, however snares were recovered in the Rhino area but were set for bushmeat species.

During the period under review, we faced a great challenge dealing with problem animal control – particularly chasing large herds of elephants away from farms, to avoid spearing. It has been a very demanding period to provide all these critical services simultaneously – addressing anti-poaching, providing general security and resolving human-wildlife conflict. Irrespective of these challenges, we have been very successful.  The following table gives an overview of the game scouts’ achievements.