Little Kenya Gardens owner Cecilia Ruto said efficacy tests of the poison known as Starlicide were done in Ukunda and Diani.
“The efficacy test was very successful as close to 2,000 birds were killed during the exercise,” Ruto told the Star on phone.
Efficacy trials determine whether an intervention produces the expected result under ideal circumstances.
Through the tests, Little Kenya Gardens and the state wanted to know how effective are Starlicide in confronting the menace brought about by the Indian House Crow.
The Indian House Crow is a scavenger that also feeds on germinating crops, young chicks, eggs and baby animals.
The crow first arrived in Kenya in 1947 and has since multiplied to become a serious pest on the Coast.
The numbers had been reduced to less than 50 by 2005 but then the use of Starlicide was banned.
Now there are thousands at the Coast and the Indian House Crow has been sighted as far inland as Emali.
Ruto said the poison, whose origin is in New Zealand, had been delayed as a result of the slowdown due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said they have been feeding the crow with bait that will be used for the efficacy test.
“We have been feeding the crows 150kg of meat each day,” Ruto said.
Ruto said a kilo of meat goes for around Sh580.
This means that each day, the crow consumed meat worth Sh87,000 and roughly Sh2,610,000 a month and Sh5,220,000 in the first two months.
Ruto said the exercise of feeding them was costly and they had to pause a little bit when the poison was delayed.
When they were informed that poison was in transit, they gain embarked on feeding the crows with meat.
Ruto said the initial import for efficacy tests was two kilos.
In February this year, Ruto had told the Star that one kilo of the poison cost Sh550, 000.
Ruto said during the efficacy tests, officials from the Pest Control Board were present.
“The PSB personnel from Nairobi and the Coast were present before, during and after the exercise,” she said.
Ruto said during the test, no other bird was affected.
“The local community collected the dead birds and they were paid Sh20 per bird. We disposed of the dead birds in a pit at a land belonging to Veterinary," she said, adding that all the necessary precautions were adhered to.
Ruto said the bait that had remained was also disposed of.
Following the successful efficacy test, Ruto said they now plan to import 100 kgs of the poison.
Ruto said they are awaiting the government to provide funds for procuring the poison that will be used to kill the crow on the whole of the coast.
“We will have to do proper planning. The stations for baiting will be identified and we might be having 10 stations in each county depending on where the crow roosts,” she said.
She said the cost of the exercise might double owing to the scale of counties to be covered.
Controversy over the importation of the poison peaked last year after it emerged that only one company had a license to do so.
Following the controversy, former Tourism CS Najib Balala had given Ruto six months to resolve issues curtailing the importation.
Ruto had been insisting that she had worked hard for years to get the license to import the poison as the product is not registered in Kenya.
“It is a very expensive exercise. I have also had to maintain a skeleton staff and offices to avoid Pest Control Board from taking my license,” she had said.
Ruto had said when the Pest Control Board approves her drugs after the efficacy tests, they will be licensed.
Little Kenya Gardens was awarded the monopoly to import Starlicide over three years ago.
Stakeholders were concerned as the crow was multiplying rapidly and causing serious economic damage to the Coast.
On September 22, 2021, the Watamu Association wrote to the outgoing Environment PS Chris Kiptoo complaining that the slow-release poison Starlicide is not available in Kenya.
Starlicide metabolises rapidly over 10 to 12 hours and if a poisoned crow is found dead, it can be eaten safely by a scavenger such as a dog or a vulture.
Starlicide is the only measure that has proved effective in reducing Indian crow numbers.
Control measures over the last 20 years using trapping and carefully supervised poisoning with Starlicide reduced the house crow population in Zanzibar town by 95 per cent and over the whole island by 75-80 per cent.
“However, the problem at hand is that only one company, Little Kenya Gardens, has been given the sole rights to import and distribute Starlicide in Kenya,” the association wrote.
The Watamu Association said Little Kenya Gardens has not been active in the crow eradication programme yet it has refused to relinquish its monopoly, even to the Kenya Wildlife Service.
In January 2020, the KWS Board of Trustees approved a “well thought through plan for a National House Crow Eradication Strategy” and that “a comprehensive five-year National House Crow Eradication Programme” was completed in July 2020.
The KWS has an environmental social impact assessment licence for a trial of Starlicide in Kwale, Mombasa and Kilifi.
