This snare is just an example of the type that are all too frequently found in the 'Protected Areas' of Uganda. This particular one was found whilst Erik, UCF Field Project Officer, was carrying out work on one of the UCF projects accompanied by Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers. Fortunately this one will no longer be a threat to wildlife.
Through its projects UCF is constantly providing support to the wildlife rangers in a practical manner by supplementing equipment to improve patrol capabilities and as in Dura improving access to areas by clearing tracks or via the waterways patrol support measures. In addition UCF helps in educating communities about the importance of wildlife, helps to implement human-wildlife conflict measures and employs ex-poachers in its field work to provide them with an alternative means of income.
UCF is extending these measures to Murchison Falls Conservation Area (MFCA), please click here if you would like to support this work.
Elephants learn to combat chilli!
Those of you who regularly follow our news stories will have read of UCF's efforts to support the local communities bordering Ugandan National Parks in their fight against crop raiding by elephants and other wildlife. A mixture of methods are used in this fight from physical barriers in the form of trenches and fences; to the use of chilli as a repellent or a buffer crop; and more recently bee hives. News now reaches us that elephants are adopting new measures themselves to overcome these obstacles, albeit not yet witnessed in Uganda.
For some time, elephants have been controlled by either planting chilli as a buffer crop or spreading ground chilli around a field or smeared onto fences . The scent drives the jumbos away. Reports from the Songwe region of Zambia state that elephants were now undeterred by the chilli planted as a preventive measure. They were destroying the crops nonetheless. The chilli project is failing after elephants devised a system of breaking through the chilli barrier by trampling on the chilli while moving in backwards, since the trunk usually detects the scent first. As for the chilli cloth strips that hang on the perimeter fences, they were destroyed by elephants by throwing branches on the fences to bring down the chilli.
(Extract from article by Edwin Mbulo in Livingstone, Zambia, 29th January 2012, as reported at The Post Newspapers Zambia.)
For full article; click here
Measures to try to reduce human-wildlife conflict are constantly evolving as UCF has long accepted that some measures will become over familiar to elephants and result in their overcoming the methods used. UCF has worked with UWA and the local communities in integrating several mechanisms to minimise human-wildlife conflict and most recently introduced the use of bee hives as a deterrent and a means of increasing local incomes.
UCF hopes to extend these measures to Murchison Falls Conservation Area (MFCA), please click here if you would like to support this work.
Equipment worth UGX 7.5 million (approx. £2,000) has been donated to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) to help fight poaching of wildlife. The donation from the organisation Bush Meat Eastern Africa includes computers, GPS systems and other equipment for wildlife rangers.
(Sunday Monitor, Uganda 22nd January 2012. For full article click here )
UCF welcomes any additional support given to UWA to help fight the continuing battle against ivory poachers and the bush meat trade. For the past 10 years UCF has provided substantial support to UWA in this fight through the sourcing of finance for ranger accommodation, boat stations and field equipment in addition to working with them in introducing measures to reduce human / wildlife conflict.
Elephants have miles of unbroken savanna to roam inside Uganda's Queen Elizabeth Park, where their numbers total 2,500, a dramatic rise after heavy poaching in the 1980s. Outside the preserve villagers kill elephants that trample and eat crops, though attacks have diminished with the digging of trenches to protect fields from wild trespassers.
(See pictures and read more on this story from the National Geographic November 2011 feature "Rift in Paradise." by clicking here )
UCF originated from work carried out by its founder on human wildlife conflict, in particular conflict resulting from crop raiding by elephants in the Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth Protected Area. The trenches referred to in the above article resulted from work originated by UCF.
What have we done so far?
Other benefits:
Much remains to be done to continue this work in this and other areas. To support the efforts of UCF in this work, PLEASE DONATE ONLINE NOW.
