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BIG LIFE RANGERS SAVE PRIDE OF LIONS FROM MAASAI WARRIORS
by Richard Bonham
February 16 2012
''Romeo Bravo, Romeo Bravo, come in.''
That's my call sign on the the Big Life radio network, and if I hear it after eight in the evening, I know it's bad news.
On Wednesday, I got such a call from the Big Life game Ranger outpost at Rombo. True to form, it was bad news. The message was that there had been an attempt to to kill a pride of five lions, and that I should come first thing in the morning, that the situation was ''MAYDAY'', which means that the situation was life-threatening.
Before sunrise, with just enough light to see the runway, I was airborne in the Super Cub. Half an hour later, I landed at the Rombo airstrip by the Big Life ranger post, where worried-looking rangers met me and recounted the following story:
The day before, a young Maasai warrior had run into their camp to say that a pride of five lions had attacked his herd of cattle. Two cows had been killed, and the lions were still feeding on them. He told the rangers that they must go there immediately to scare the lions away, as another warrior who he was herding with had already gone to local Maasai warriors to come and help spear them.
So here we have a situation of one warrior, who had just lost two very valuable and prized cattle, coming to ask the rangers to help him stop other warriors coming to kill the lions..... WHY?
The reason is this : just last month the Maasailand Preservation Trust and Big Life Foundation started a program in the Rombo area to educate the coming-of-age warriors that the days of killing lions for sport and retribution, or, killing elephants for their tusks, were over. Their new role as warriors was to preserve them as both are on the brink of extinction and the Maasai need to become the custodians. This in turn would bring them much-needed jobs, and the opportunity to also help bring tourism to their area. However, in the meantime, unlike other Maasai Ranches in the ecosystem, Rombo does not receive compensation for losses of their livestock killed by predators, and each livestock owner, however poor he is, has to carry all losses.
But right at that moment, the rangers knew that once the warriors were on the trail of the lions, there would be no turning them back. They rushed to the kill site and there was the pride - a lion and lioness with three cubs, gorging themselves on the cows. The rangers set off a couple of thunder flashes, causing the lions to abandon their kill and retreat into the thick bush. Moments later, the Maasai warriors arrived armed with spears. On seeing that the Big Life rangers had scared off the lions, they vented their fury to such a degree that the rangers came close to being attacked.
At this point, we began hearing the high pitch ululating of Maasai women, the age-old signal of distress and the calling to arms of their men. About one kilometre away, we came across about about 50 women, hysterical and obviously angry. They ran towards us, shouting and screaming that the rangers had frightened the lions away, so stopping their warriors from killing the lions, and putting the blame of the lions killing their livestock on us. They began banging the car with their fists, screaming in hysteria as they did so. At this point, a Maasai elder appeared, carrying a long stick and set about beating any women who came in range, helping disperse them sufficiently for us to make a rather undignified retreat. It turned out the Elder was the owner of the cows, and was telling them he did not want trouble and that the issue would be sorted by men, not women!
Shaken, we moved to a hilltop to observe the proceedings and establish radio contact to call in reinforcements and to alert the Villager chiefs. From our vantage point, we watched as groups of warriors appear from all points of the compass, all heading to where the lions were last seen the day before. To my relief I also began seeing elders appear, including the chiefs, all of whom made it clear that they were on our side and that we must stop the warriors from going after the lions. They too looked nervous, and said we must be careful as warriors, when worked into the frenzy in which they were, could be very dangerous and unpredictable, especially today as they were being egged on by the women who were telling them if they did not go and kill the Lion, then give them their spears and they would do it for them!.
We waited about an hour and then moved with great trepidation to where the warriors had gathered. We approached the group who had now grown to about 100 warriors, all armed with spears and stabbing swords... in full battle dress. The elders called to them to relax and sit down, but their words seemed to have little effect. Suddenly a warrior collapsed and went into convulsions. Then another, and another. The situation was soon out of control and as a mass, they turned, screaming the battle cry and sprinting towards the thicket where the lions were last seen.
Francis Legai, the Big Life commanding officer who was with me, cocked his rifle and said "Richard, we must get out of here''. I needed no prompting, and as nonchalantly as we could, we started to slowly walk back towards where the plane was parked about 500 yards away. The temptation to jump in and get out of there was huge, but I told Francis that we would never live it down if we were seen to abandon the situation and fly away, leaving the rangers to face whatever was to come, so we waited with the rest of the leaders to see what would transpire.
About twenty minutes later we saw a group of five warriors approaching. They were the leaders and said were ready to talk. There followed a long list of demands. They said the community in their area had lost of sixty head of livestock to predators in the last month and their patience had run out, that they wanted our livestock compensation scheme to be implemented in Rombo, or they would be forced to kill whatever predator killed their livestock. They also said they wanted more jobs open to them to become game scouts, so that they could also glean benefits from wildlife.....For them, they said, wildlife at this point was ''hasara'' , which loosely translated means nothing but loss.
What they were saying was preaching to the converted, as my mantra has always been that if communities who live with wildlife do not derive benefits from wildlife, then the game is over. They asked me to come and speak to the warriors and tell them what we could do to help rectify the situation, so we went back to where the warriors were now gathered under a grove of trees. They were now sitting - a good sign - but the early morning light still glistened rather ominously on the hundred or so spears they were still holding.
Unfortunately I had to tell the assembled Maasai that we would be unable to expand the compensation project to Rombo, as the predator compensation funding on the other ranches we were covering was in jeopardy, despite the success of the projects, due to a lack in funding, but I would offer a ''one-off'' consolation payment to the owner of the two dead cows ($500), and I that I would do my best to try and raise money for ongoing payments, but only if they were patient and did not threaten to kill, or kill any more predators or elephants. The only other arrows I had left in my quiver was to tell them about the benefits wildlife was generating on the other ranches we worked on around the Amboseli ecosystem : employment, tourism revenue, education, health care, and that if they decided to kill predators or any other wildlife, they would be ruining their own communities' chances of harnessing wildlife-related benefits in the future.
The warriors accepted this on condition that the owner of the cows was paid within three days. He stood up and said that he would indeed accept the consolation payment, and even went on to say that he forbad the warriors to kill lions, but Big Life must try and help the community find a tourism investor to develop a wildlife-based industry on the ranch.
So what did we learn and achieve on that day? It reaffirmed my conviction that without offering consolation payments for depredation of livestock by predators, we would have to join the millions of acres of wildlife habitat where predators have become extinct - the beginning of a slippery slope to a world that consigned wildlife to history. It also reaffirmed that the most of the Maasai people living with wildlife are open to continue to live with it, but must see benefits. Lastly, it showed that the importance of education, If we had not started the Menye Liok project which set out to educate and offer alternatives to hunting, the Maasai warriors would have probably killed those five lion on the first evening, with more than a good chance of a warrior or two being killed in the process.
Now, like everywhere else we play for time. We have to deliver more jobs, starting with employing more community rangers to protect wildlife from poaching and incidents like this. We have to deliver more than rhetoric, and raise money to make good losses to console against wildlife-related losses. But probably more important, we have to develop sustainable wildlife-related income, that will bring wildlife out of the debit line and into the credit line. Then we will have a chance.
Richard talks to local Maasai warriors to try and persuade them not to kill the lion pride
DOGS SAVE ELEPHANTS : How One of Big Life's New Tracker Dogs Successfully Tracked Down Elephant Poachers Armed with AK47's
Jazz, one of Big Life's Tracker Dogs on the wing of Richard's plane, with his handler, Mutinda
December 14 2011
by Nick Brandt / Llewellyn Dyer
The gang of Somali poachers, armed with AK47's, shot and killed two big bull elephants for their ivory on consecutive days. It was not their first, for they had been killing elephants in the area for a year. Once again, they successfully fled the scene of the crime.
This happened not in the Amboseli ecosystem, where Big Life's rangers have so dramatically reduced the poaching, but in a place called Rukinga, east of Tsavo, several hours drive away. A group there, Wildlife Works, had heard of Big Life's newly-acquired tracker dogs. The four tracker dogs had just finished six months of intensive training. Two were to be based on the Tanzanian side, the first time tracker dogs have ever been implemented there for tracking poachers, and two in Kenya, the only tracker dogs in a huge area of the southeastern part of the country. Wildlife Works called, asking for help tracking the poachers.
The next morning, Jazz was flown in. He was shown the tracks and was off without a moment's hesitation, his first ever real job. The poachers had employed clever anti-tracking techniques, splitting up, re-crossing their tracks and laying false trails. But Jazz saw straight through them and carried on. Llew, Big Life's Field Co-ordinator, flew ahead of the ground teams with a spotter, hoping to spot the poachers or at least slow them down.
By 6.30pm, Jazz had been on the trail for over ten hours without break, and had covered about 20 miles without a single wrong turn, but needed a rest. In the meantime, a group of rangers continued ahead of Jazz, and soon spotted the poachers just ahead of them. The poachers ran, but were caught. Identified by their tracks, the men were arrested, and are now awaiting trial.
Although many people worked hard to make this arrest possible, it never would have happened without Jazz and his nose.
This incident has quickly proven what we already knew : that tracker dogs are one of the best anti-poaching deterrents money can buy. Poachers know that even a day after the event, dogs can find them, and there is nothing that the poacher can do to change this. The Maasai in particular are terrified of trackers dogs, regarding them as somehow supernatural in their ability to track them down.
So now Jazz and his canine cohorts have become one more critical piece in Big Life's anti-poaching armory. The fact that Big Life is able to help other groups well beyond our range is an added bonus.
End-of-Year Appeal
This has been an incredibly successful first year in existence for Big Life Foundation. We could never have imagined that the Big Life teams would have achieved such a dramatic reduction in the killing of wildlife across the unique two million acre Amboseli ecosystem.
But with the explosion in demand for animal parts from the Far East, and ever greater pressure from a fast-growing population, the poaching of all animals in Africa continues unabated. 35,000 elephants - 10% of the African population - are estimated to be killed every year. The lion population has been reduced by 90% over the last 20 years, to just 20,000 estimated left across the entire continent.
But right now, in one critical corner of Africa, Big Life Foundation is staunching that flow of blood. The poachers in the huge area that Big Life is protecting are now arrested almost every time they kill or attempt to kill.
As a result, over the year that Big Life has been in the field, countless animals lives have been saved, and the continued health of this ecosystem maintained.
Critically, Big Life has at the same time had huge support from the local communities, without whose support all of this would have been impossible. Not just because Big Life is now a major employer in the area, but because more and more people within the communities see the economic benefits to them of having a thriving wildlife population that draws people from all around the world.
All that Big Life has achieved this year could never have happened without the support of you, our donors. Please go to our website's Latest News, and to get a partial glimpse of just how effective your donations have been over the year, and all with minimal administration costs here in the U.S.
So thank you from everyone at Big Life, and if you can, please donate, to help us continue our success into the next year and beyond.
Thank you
Nick Brandt
Jazz & Max, two of Big Life's Tracker Dogs on the wing of Richard Bonham's plane, with their handlers and other Big Life Rangers
Elephant Poacher/ Poisoner Caught & Convicted
December 10 2011
The photo above is of a major elephant poacher operating in the eastern part of the Amboseli ecosystem and the Chyulus. He was recently caught and arrested with 30 poisoned arrows by Big Life and Masailand Preservation Trust rangers. The arrest came about as a result of an ex-poacher now Big Life/ MPT informer. The poacher was just convicted and received three years in jail.
BAD NEWS, THEN GOOD NEWS, AS ANOTHER PROLIFIC ELEPHANT POACHER KILLS, AND IS ARRESTED BY BIG LIFE
by LLEWELLYN DYER, Big Life Field Co-ordinator
October 22 2011
Over the last couple of months, there have been a spate of elephant killings in the Kuku and Rombo regions east of Amboseli National Park. They were the work of groups of Maasai morans, hunting in their traditional manner. The tusks were removed and sold across the border in Tanzania.
As Big Life investigated, it became apparent that there was someone training groups of young Maasai how to hunt elephant with a spear. The man, Tiampati ole Mpaluka, a hardcore traditional bushman Maasai, has been poaching in the area for years, and has been known and wanted by the Kenyan government for the last couple of years. In recent months, he is known to have killed numerous elephants in Tsavo West as well as Kuku.
But every time he killed, he would escape into Tanzania, making it harder to track him down. In spite of owning a gun, he has always chosen to kill elephants with poisoned spears and arrows, a terrible, slow and painful death for the elephants. But by using a spear, he was less likely to get shot by authorities, and be less likely to get a severe sentence. The Big Life rangers got reports that he was in the area, so they went to see if they could arrest him. However, on that day, young Masaai warriors armed with spears, all paying homage to this ‘great’ bushman and asking to be trained, surrounded him. The situation was too volatile. Trying to arrest him there was too dangerous, so he escaped.
At the beginning of October, the Kuku region rangers (not Big Life) found a poached elephant, and managed to track down and arrest all four poachers before they could remove the ivory. This group contained two of Tiampati’s brothers, who were both trained by him and had been poaching elephant since they were teenagers. During their interrogation, we learned that Tiampati was now living in a place just across the border into Tanzania.
Four days later, a Big Life informer confirmed that Tiampati was heading to his brother’s house just across the border to spend the night. A Big Life ranger in civilian clothing approached the house early on the next day, on the pretense of looking for a lost goat, to confirm that Tiampati was there. When the Big Life rangers entered the hut, Tiampati attempted to flee, while his family members and morani tried to prevent the rangers from making the arrest. The rangers split in two, with one group successfully chasing down Tiampati, and the other holding off the morani until they could extract him.
Teamwork has again been a key to another long-time poacher brought down - this time between Big Life, Kuku Ranch (MCWT), and as always, the support of key members of the local communities.
Tiampati is currently being held by in Makindu without bail until he appears in court on the 21st of November. Of his eight colleagues, only three now remain at large.
Body of Elephant Recently Killed by Poachers, Sept 2011
BIG LIFE'S TRACKER DOGS ARRIVE, READY TO HUNT DOWN POACHERS
by RICHARD BONHAM
October 18 2011
One of the most effective tools to an anti-poaching strategy is to deter poachers from even coming into an area. In this regard, there is no tool more effective than tracker dogs. Even if the poachers are not ambushed or stopped before the crime, they will almost definitely be caught with dogs after the crime. They cannot get away.
Dogs can track this trail from where poachers have killed up to one day past the event, and lead the team to the door of the poacher’s house. This is a significant deterrent : the poacher knows that nothing he can do will be able to change this. The Maasai in particular are terrified of trackers dogs, regarding them as somehow supernatural in their ability to track them down.
The last four months have been frustrating while our ranger teams were working without the back-up of tracker dogs. There have been two elephant poaching cases, where we were able to follow the poachers' tracks until they reached the outskirts of villages, where unfortunately, movement of people and livestock caused the tracks to be lost. As it turned out, we were later able to identify and arrest the poachers through informers, but by which time the ivory was sold.
By contrast, I remember one case a few years ago when our bloodhounds were called in to follow up a poaching case after the rangers lost the tracks when they entered a small town. The dogs, despite being about eight hours behind the scent, led the scouts through the town of about one thousand people to a hut on the outskirts. So confident of the dog that the rangers did not even attempt to knock, they forced open the door, to find the poachers with all the evidence required for a prosecution.
Probably the most outstanding follow-up we had was when a patrol team found a rhino trail littered with cable snares, set the day before. The ground in the area was mainly lava rock, and so impossible for conventional tracking that the dogs were bought in. Four hours later, the dogs led the rangers out of the park to a small hut on a farm. On searching the hut, the rangers found more snares, poisoned arrows and a gin trap. How many animals this single operation saved is impossible to determine.
In March of this year, thanks to the incredibly generous donation from the Benindi Fund in the UK, Big Life Foundation purchased four tracker dogs, two for the Kenyan side, two for the Tanzanian side. These dogs were selected from kennels in Czechoslovakia, and were trained by Canine Specialist Services International, which are based in Northern Tanzania. German Shepherd were chosen over Bloodhounds, as they have more stamina and can handle the heat better. After six months training in Northern Tanzania, the dogs were ready for action.
Sunday, October 9, 2011 :
A two-car convey left Tanzania on Sunday morning, headed for Kenya. On board were six excited Big Life rangers who had been away from home for two months, upgrading their skills as tracker dog handlers. With them were two German Shepherds, Max and and Jazz, their first trip out of boot camp where they had finally graduated from the 18-month course in Man Tracking....they even had certificates to prove it.
John Magembe, Big Life's field commander on the Tanzanian side, and with 17 years of anti-poaching under his belt, led the convoy. He was probably more excited than anyone, as finally, he had another weapon in his anti-poaching armory to put to use immediately.
At each village, John deliberately had the convoy stop at the villages' local tea shop. The rangers ordered tea, and water for the dogs. Before either could be served, they were surrounded by inquisitive crowds wanting to know what was going on. I would loved to have been a fly on the wall, but can only imagine what John and the trackers told of what the dogs were being brought to do, and what they could do. But from what I hear, it was anything from being able to smell poached ivory from 5 miles away, to following a man's scent across dry dusty ground one month after he passed. Nothing wrong with a bit of exaggeration, but the message would have moved fast as in all rural communities.
John and I met on a salt pan on the Amboseli lake bed where I had landed my Cessna 206. The column drove up in a spiral of dust and the trackers jumped out, beaming smiles, a combination of being home again, pride at passing out of their tracking/dog handling course, and bringing home their anti-poaching dogs. I have been owned by dogs all my life, and worked with blood hound tracker dogs for five years, but I have to admit that I had a few seconds of panic as Max was let out of his travelling crate. With his ears pricked up, those yellow predator eyes locked on, and he came towards me in bounds, straining at his lead. I resisted the reaction to run and held out my hand, which he sniffed before jumping up and wrapping his front paws around my shoulders in a macho hug.
I had the not-so-bright idea of taking photos of the dogs and the handlers on the wing of the plane. We got some photos, but Jazz then decided he could get down without any help. He slipped down the windscreen, leaving furrows where his claws gripped on, adding yet more scars on the trusty old Cessna's conservation flying career. But I know that as I fly, I will look on those scars with affection, for they will remind me of the day when Max and Jazz arrived.
NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS?
Big Life Rangers Holding Tusks of Killed Elephants (prior to Big Life), Amboseli, July 2011
by NICK BRANDT
September 18 2011
It's been a few months since the last Big Life Foundation newsletter. Is no news good news?
The attached photo, taken in July, shows 22 of the now 100+ Big Life Rangers. They are holding the tusks of just a few of the elephants killed in the Amboseli/Tsavo eccosystem in the years 2004-2009. (So none of these elephant were killed on Big Life's watch).
The ranger at the front is Corporal Katanki, who has one of the best records for the capture of poachers amongst Big Life's growing small army of men fighting to save the elephants and the other animals in this unique ecosystem.
The tusks that Katanki is holding would now bring an estimated $200,000 in China.
So it is perhaps something of a miracle that we still have any elephants left standing in Africa. Whilst the destruction continues unabated and at terrifying speed across much of Africa, in Amboseli, the Big Life ranger teams have so far done an amazing job . Yes, we are still losing animals - in the last few months, several elephant, some giraffes, zebras and other game - but now, almost every single time that poachers kill in the areas where Big Life's teams have a presence, the teams have successfully apprehended the poachers.
As a result, there has been a dramatic reduction in both poaching and in animals killed from human/wildlife conflict.
With the help of your donations, we most recently opened a camp in a place called Rombo, and in the eight weeks that the camp has been in place, multiple arrests have been made, again making a major difference. (SEE ROMBO STORY BELOW IN LATEST NEWS SECTION).
Much of this success has also been due to the support of the local communities, who provide each the teams with essential information. The bush network is as effective a means of communication as Facebook, it seems.
With the recent introduction of our first sets of night vision equipment, and the imminent addition of tracker dogs for both the Kenyan and Tanzanian sides of the region, the Big Life teams should become still more effective.
However, as many of you know by now, the destruction of animals continues unabated in the areas where we still cannot afford to establish a protective presence.
With your support, we can make urgently-needed inroads into those areas still rapidly losing their wildlife, first within the Amboseli ecosystem, and then, as a matter of urgency, beyond.
Big Life Ranger with Tusks of Elephant (killed prior to Big Life), Amboseli, July 2011
RAMPANT POACHING IN ROMBO, AREA OF NEWEST BIG LIFE CAMP, QUICKLY REDUCED BY MULTIPLE ARRESTS BY BIG LIFE RANGERS
From Llewellyn Dyer, Big Life’s Field Commander in Kenya
August 10, 2011
We have known from some time that Big Life urgently needed to establish a presence in Rombo, in the southeastern corner of the eco-system, close to Tsavo West National Park. Poaching has been rampant there, with poachers coming in from Tanzania on a regular basis. Once sufficient donor funds were available, the camp was built in June, with the standard team of 8 rangers plus Landcruiser moving in.
JUNE 16 : ELEPHANT POACHERS IDENTIFIED
The rangers get their first case before camp construction is even completed. On June 16 while on patrol, they find a day-old carcass of a young bull that has been speared and the ivory removed.
Working with the local community, the team discovers the names of two brothers who have killed the elephant. They have sold the ivory to another Maasai, and fled to Mombasa with the cash. When the two brothers hopefully eventually return, they will be apprehended and arrested by the team.
JULY 20 : GIRAFFE POACHING GANG ARRESTED
The Big Life Rombo team receives a report of hunting torches near the home of the community’s Assistant Chief. The rangers are already out patrolling another area, but respond immediately.
Unfortunately, by the time they arrive, the poachers have already made a kill and are in the process of cutting up the giraffe. On sighting the approaching rangers, the poachers scatter. In pursuit, the rangers manage to arrest two of the poachers, but the remaining eight men, including the leaders, manage to escape under the cover of darkness.
Upon interrogating the arrested poachers, the names of the other poachers are revealed. Now that these men are identified and their home areas are known, it is now hopefully just a matter of time before the gang is all apprehended.
Big Life recently purchased five sets of Generation II Night Vision goggles. With these in the field, plus the arrival of our tracker dogs in September, this should make capturing the poachers on the run and at night much easier in the future. However, we still need more funds to purchase night vision goggles for all the camps.
JULY 25 : ELEPHANT POACHERS IDENTIFIED & ARRESTED
A Big Life informer reports to us that a female elephant has been speared and died close to Tsavo West. The elephant has been speared once in the forehead and once in the neck, and has probably taken at least a week to die. The tusks have been removed and its 3 year old calf was missing.
An unpaid volunteer from the local community, Kasaini, follows the tracks of two men leaving the carcass, and despite their best efforts to cover their trail, Kasaini finds where they have stashed the tusks in manure in an old hut. Kasaini reports this to Kenya Wildlife Service, and they come and recover the tusks.
Due to his great work, Kasaini is now to be employed as a Big Life ranger.
The Big Life rangers track the calf up to the boundary of the park where they are lost amidst the tracks of cattle being taken into the park to graze illegally. The following morning this task is handed over to a team from David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, who deal with all orphan elephants in Kenya.
Now the hunt for the poachers begins. Our scouts get information that the elephant was killed by a morani, a young warrior trying to prove his manliness. He did not even bother to follow the tracks to take the ivory. Big Life passes on this information to KWS, as the morani is apparently illegally grazing in Tsavo West at the moment.
The two Maasai who actually took the ivory are also identified. One is arrested the following day, despite other members of his family drawing their simis (Masaai short-swords) in order to prevent it. The other Maasai, an elder, is also arrested four days later.
Richard thanks Kasaini, unpaid volunteer now Big Life ranger, for tracking down the ivory thieves.
JULY 28 : GIRAFFE POACHING GANG ARRESTED
An informer calls into the base, saying that he has found a snared giraffe not far from his home. Big Life rangers head to the scene and find that the giraffe has not yet been butchered, but has died an awful slow death. Reaching up to new leaves in a tree, the snare has closed around its neck. In trying to escape, the giraffe became all the more enmeshed in snare, and slowly over the course of the day would have asphysixiated. The Big Life rangers decide to wait and see who comes to collect the meat.
Their patience is rewarded 13 hours later, when they see the torches of six men on bicycles approaching through the trees. The trap is sprung and three poachers are caught. However, three others, including the leader, escape in the dark. The three arrested poachers, all from Tanzania, have been brought in to carry the meat back over the border where it will be sold. The following day, the Big Life team receive reports of the wherabouts of the gang leader. He is arrested that evening in one of his homes. The other two poachers, although identified, as yet remain at large.
Llewellyn and Richard with Giraffe caught in tree snare.
(The bicycles belonged to the poachers and are used to transport the meat into Tanzania to be sold in the markets
BIG LIFE ROMBO RANGERS OFF TO FLYING START
All these incidents prove how critical it was for Big Life to establish an anti-poaching presence in Rombo. There has already been a marked decrease in the amount of bush-meat and elephant poaching in that area. The rangers there currently have the highest arrest rate of any of the Big Life bases and their commitment to following up with suspects that escape is showing the community that we will no tolerate the poaching of Kenya’s precious wildlife.
Now we need to get funding for more camps to be installed in the other areas where poaching is still rampant.
THE POACHER WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (& How He Helped Catch An Infamous Killer of Elephants)
Musambaa, Giraffe Poacher turned Big Life Ranger
March 15 2011
For close to three months, there had at last been zero reports of any elephants killed or injured in the areas now under the new protection of Big Life's anti-poaching teams and outposts.
Unfortunately, this came to an end a few weeks ago. During this time, three more female elephants were killed by poachers or presumed dead.
However, Llewellyn Dyer, Big Life's Field Coordinator in Kenya, reports the following :
THE POACHER WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (& How He Helped Catch An Infamous Killer of Elephants)
I was sitting one day with Big Life's Game Scouts at our Il Marba base, and the conversation turned to the major poachers in their area. One of the men that they mentioned was called Musambaa, a prolific giraffe poacher who was notoriously difficult to catch, as he was so strong, smart and fast. When I asked the scouts why he poached, they simply said, “He has no cows”. In other words, he was very poor and was trying to support his family. My interest sparked, I asked if it would be possible to meet him. They said he was very wary, as he had been arrested so many times, but they would try to get a message to him.
Two weeks later, I met Musambaa at Il Marba base. When I asked him why he poached, he said, “I did not want to steal from other people, so I decided to steal from the government.” I asked him if I gave him a job protecting animals, would that stop him from killing them? He said “YES.”
I told him to come to the ranger selection that weekend, to see if he really was committed. One of the exercises was to track a few of the scouts for 5km through the thickest, trickiest bush we could find. In the end it was Musambaa who got to the scouts first, tracking them right up to the rock where they were hiding. I was impressed, but still very cautious. He was a poacher, after all. So I placed him in the care of a trusted sergeant at our base in Kimana to continue his integration.
A week later, we received a report of a female elephant that had been poached in an area near the Il Marba base, our first killing in close to three months. The scouts found the carcass, covered by bushes. The elephant had been speared, its tusks cut out with an axe, its body skinned to expedite the scavenger clean-up process. With the help of a Big Life informer, we were found out out that three infamous elephant poachers were responsible for the killing. The tusks had already been sold to a well-known ivory dealer who owned a butchers in Tanzania. The poachers were also now suspected to be hiding out Tanzania.
Finding out from Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) that the worst of the three poachers, Pekei Shoke, had two outstanding warrants for his arrest, I dispatched Musambaa and the Il Marba sergeant in civilian clothing. I wanted to see if they could track him down.
Within hours, Musambaa called. He was on Pekei’s trail near his home on the Kenya side of the border, and would call me when he had an exact location. I started putting the wheels in motion to get a couple of KWS Intelligence guys to assist us in the arrest.
The next afternoon, Musambaa called in. He had followed Pekei to a village in Tanzania and was watching him. We informed KWS and the Tanzanian Park authorities, but they could not be in place to arrest him until 6pm. As the afternoon progressed, Musambaa ended up sitting and talking to Pekei, who was asking Musambaa to buy him a drink. Musambaa called me to ask if could. I said yes, and do whatever else he needed to do to keep Pekei static whilst we tried to get rangers from Big Life’s Tanzanian team there to make the arrest. At around 6pm, the team arrived on the scene and made the arrest. Pekei was then handed over to KWS Intelligence officers, and extradited back to Kenya that same evening.
The poacher has now been imprisoned, with length of sentence to be determined in the coming weeks, as further longstanding charges are brought against him by KWS.
So as Big Life continues to be seen to successfully and consistently capture a series of poachers, other poachers will now see all the more clearly the huge risks of being arrested for their crimes.
But in the meantime, we continue to urgently need donations. As expected, the poachers are now moving into the areas with the least or no protection. Just this week, we had a report that one of the last big old bulls in the Amboseli ecosystem has been killed in one of the exact areas that we know we need a camp and establish a patrolling presence.
We need to respond fast. And once again, with your help, we can.
LONE BIG LIFE RANGER SHOWS GRIT & SAVES LION FROM REVENGE KILLING
Nkapapa Kombe, Big Life Ranger
March 12 2011
On February 17, a report came in to the new Big Life base at Osiwan that a lion had killed a donkey not far from the base, and that Morans (young Maasai warriors) had gathered in order to kill it.
There was just one ranger at the base, Nkapapa Kombe, as the main team were out on patrol. When Nkapapa got the report, he donned his uniform, called in the incident over the radio, and proceeded into the bush to see what he could do to stop the killing.
After a while, Nkapapa came face to face with the group of the Morans. They were now in a standoff : one small unarmed ranger (Nkapapa is just 5'3"), facing a group of Morans with spears. Nkapapa told the Morans that if they wanted to kill the lion, then they would have to kill him first.
After a moment, the Morans backed down. The hunt was stopped completely when Nkapapa enlisted the help of the Elder from the village nearest the base, who was also the owner of the donkey that had been killed. The Elder told the Morans that the donkey was his, that his son had just been employed as a Big Life Ranger, that he had no desire for the lion to be killed, and that they should disperse and return home. They did, and another lion killing was averted.
Thus by including the local communities in the protection of the wildlife amongst them, it helps both the people and animals of the areas benefit and thrive.
SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF ELEPHANT INJURED BY CROSSBOW TRAP
Elephant Injured by Crossbow Trap. Successfully Treated, March 2011
March 10 2011
On March 1 a report came in of an injured elephant in the Chyulu Hills. A Mobile Unit from Masailand Preservation Trust, Big Life’s partner in Kenya, was sent to locate the elephant. After 3 days of hard searching the finally tracked it down 60km from where it was last spotted and the vet, supplied by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust & KWS, was called in.
The vet arrived from Nairobi that afternoon. After darting the elephant, the vet found that there was a very deep puncture wound in the front of its front right leg that had become infected. The location and depth of the wound led the vet to believe that it was caused by a crossbow trap. These traps work on a tripwire system and are generally aimed at the legs. With such a wound, the animal cannot move very far and will probably die of dehydration and infection.
The vet managed to clean and disinfect the wound and gave the elephant a healthy dose of antibiotics to fight of any further infections. He was very positive with his prognosis and the elephant will continue to be monitored by Big Life and MPT scouts until it has fully recovered.