Kenya gov't to oversee wildlife authority actions

By TOM ODULA21 hours ago

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya's central government will oversee the running of the country's wildlife authority for the next three months in a bid to stop poaching of the country's elephants and rhinos, an official with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources said Friday.

Richard Lesiyampe said six senior Kenya Wildlife Service officials have been placed on leave to pave the way for investigations into the wildlife service's operations.

Among those sent on leave is the senior deputy director in charge of conservation, Patrick Omondi, who is also known as "Elephant Man" in Kenya for his top level expertise. Omondi is a leading international campaigner against the trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn.

The Kenya Wildlife Service's intelligence unit will be restructured and 50 four-wheel drive vehicles added to the fleet to increase mobility of rangers protecting wildlife across the country, Lesiyampe said, adding that 600 additional rangers will be recruited next week.

Last month Richard Leakey, a famed scientist and founding head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, alleged that the service had been infiltrated by powerful people enriching themselves from poaching. He urged the government to overhaul the service's management.

Continued

Backbenchers issue strong call for Government to abandon badger cull

The future of badgers still hangs in the balance

March 2014: Backbench MPs have overwhelmingly voted for the controversial badger call to be abandoned in favour of vaccination. The backbench vote, of 219 to 1, is not binding, however, and has no direct consequences, but campaign groups described it as a disaster for the Government. They believe that it underlines how strong is the opposition to the policy, with Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians speaking out against it, and that it leaves the Coalition with no alternative but to hold a full vote before making the final decision on whether or not to extend the cull.

The pilot culling scheme, which began last autumn, aimed to control the spread of bovine TB by killing at least 70 per cent of the badgers in areas of west Somerset and west Gloucestershire over a period of six weeks. But both schemes were extended after initial figures suggested 58 per cent of badgers were eradicated in Somerset and 30 per cent in Gloucestershire.

Read on

Government panel deems badger culls a failure

February 2014: The 2013 badger cull pilot schemes in Somerset and Gloucestershire fell far short of their targets, according to an independent scientific assessment organised by the Government. The number of badgers killed was lower than required to demonstrate the effectiveness of culling in controlling the spread of bovine TB, and the test for humaneness in the methods used to kill the badgers also failed. Up to 18 per cent of culled badgers took longer than five minutes to die, the assessment found, which contravened the requirements of the scheme. And although there was evidence that TB within the control areas diminished, it increased in areas outside the trial.

The pilots were authorised by Defra and licensed by Natural England. The target for marksmen was to kill at least 70 per cent of badgers in the cull areas within a six-week period. Research carried out by a group of scientists in earlier trials proved that a failure to kill this percentage of badgers in a narrow window of time could actually worsen matters, as diseased animals would leave a family sett that had been disturbed and scatter, carrying TB into new areas.

Contracted marksmen, paid for by farming groups, were employed to shoot the animals at night, aiming at one shot to the heart/lung area as the quickest and most humane best practice, but the assessment found there were significant instances where this did not happen and the badgers were shot in parts of the body that did not lead to instant death.

Professor Rosie Woodroffe, a scientist at the Zoological Society of London, said: “The panel's findings show unequivocally that the culls were not effective and that they failed to meet the humaneness criteria. I hope this will lead the Secretary of State, Owen Patterson, to focus on other ways of eradicating TB in cattle."

Prof Woodroffe was among 32 scientists who wrote to Mr Patterson in 2012 expressing fears that the culls risked increasing TB in cattle rather than reducing it. "Our predictions have been borne out," she said. "It has cost a fortune and probably contributed nothing in terms of disease control, which is really unfortunate."

Read on