• Poachers target animals such as gazelles, giraffes, dik-diks and guinea fowls for meat which they sell or eat. Covid poverty fuels poaching.
• Scientists warn that bushmeat can carry zoonotic diseases, transmitted from anmals to humans.
Image: COURTESY
The Kenya Wildlife Service has been tasked with developing a strategy to end rising cases of bushmeat that endangers wildlife and can cause deadly human diseases.
Wildlife PS Fred Segor on Tuesday said the spike in bushmeat must be arrested as it threatens the existence of wildlife and can carry disease.
Zoonotic diseases include Covid-19 and variants, Ebola, SARS, MERS, HIV, Lyme disease, Rift Valley Fever and Lassa fever, among other infections.
“It is regrettable but we have also asked KWS to enhance security. Ground and Air surveillance will be enhanced,” Segor said.
The PS said a host of wildlife has been killed with the latest incident being in Galana, where three suspects were nabbed with bushmeat.
Segor said the strategy that will be developed by KWS will detail how to arrest bushmeat in the short and long term.
Poachers target animals such as gazelles, giraffes, dik-diks and guinea fowls for meat.
The animals are killed by the hunters for commercial interests. The Covid-19 pandemic means more people without money go poaching.
Image: JOSEPH KANGOGO
KWS and a multi-agency security team arrested the three poachers at the Akeles area in Galana ADC Ranch along the border of Taita Taveta and Kilifi counties.
Two other suspects escaped and the security team is searching for them.
KWS is working with both private and community conservancies to scale up the war on bushmeat poaching and consumption.
The three suspects were on Monday arraigned in a Voi court where they pleaded guilty for having illegal assorted bushmeat.
The court will give its ruling on Monday, June 28, 2021.
On Tuesday, the Conservation Alliance of Kenya warned that the rising cases of bushmeat risk spreading the worst zoonotic diseases.
The Alliance CEO Steve Itela said the rise in bushmeat was anticipated following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"The government had announced the Sh1 billion towards paying salaries of rangers. Poachers are, however ,cleverer and smarter than security as they keep beating them all the time," Itela said.
The Conservation Alliance of Kenya is a limited liability membership organisation registered in Kenya as the umbrella body to advance the preservation, protection and management of wildlife and its habitats.
CAK also preserves and protects places of natural beauty; locations of zoological, botanical, geographical, scientific interest, features of the landscape with geological and physiographical value in Kenya.
As a long term strategy, Itela said there is a need to raise awareness among Kenyans on the risks involved in eating uninspected meat.
"The meat acquired is sold to communities cheaply. People need to know that they could be jeopardising their health by eating such meat," he said.
Conservation is seen to belong to elites, communities need to be engaged for them to know that it is their resource," he said.
The United Nation Environment Programme has also warned about the spread of zoonotic diseases.
The report UNEP jointly wrote with the International Livestock Research Institute talks about the wider issue of zoonotic diseases, such as Covid-19, and how to minimise them.
The report said there have been six major outbreaks of novel coronaviruses in the last century.
"Sixty per cent of known infectious diseases and 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. Over the last two decades and before Covid-19, zoonotic diseases caused economic damage of $100 billion (Sh10,77 Trillion)
Two million people in low- and middle-income countries die each year from neglected endemic zoonotic diseases such as anthrax, bovine tuberculosis and rabies.
(Edited by V. Graham)