Kisumu, June 1 — At midday in the West Kano irrigation scheme in Kenya’s Nyando Sub-county of Kisumu County, Erick Otieno has just received his lunch from his employer but can’t have it since a group of Quelea birds keep descending on the rice field he is guarding and he has to drive them away. He is employed to scare them.
The 23-year old says that he has known rice farming since he was born and watched his parents and neighbors only engage in it for a living.
Rice farmers have had to meet an extra cost of hiring youth to scare birds in their farms as the bird population has kept growing in number in the past few years. They say that the government used to spray and control their population using planes but that has since stopped since the Kenya Wildlife Service warned against the killing.
“I arrive here at the field at 5 AM. The trick is to wake up before the birds so that by the time they get here, I am ready to scare them. In the evening, I leave about 6:30 PM or 7 PM when they go back to their nests to roost,” explains Otieno.
The red-billed Quelea, also known as the red-billed weaver or red-billed dioch, is a small-sized migratory, sparrow-like bird of the weaver family, Ploceidae, that is approximately 12 cm long and weighing 15–26g and is native to Sub-Saharan Africa. They have bills adapted to eating seeds.
The birds are normally found on wheat, rice and sorghum plantations and are said to be able to consume an average of 10g of grain a day, and an average of 72,000kg per season.
Now, the farmers have been put between a rock and a hard place as they have to choose between conserving the birds’ lives and losing their crop to the devouring birds.
Next to the field that Otieno is guarding is Fredrick Obiny’s 2-acre rice farm. He also recounts the same losses inflicted by the birds. Obiny, a 35-year-old father of two has engaged in rice farming for the past five years after leaving a job at a nearby molasses plant.
Obiny says that the last time they experienced such an invasion was 1997 when a huge swarm of birds descended on the crop. But, he quickly notes, “This has been the worst! We have never seen something like this before.”
“We have called on the county government when our Governor came here a few weeks ago. We told him about our plight and fears but he just laughed it off, saying he had never imagined using a plane to control the birds. The Kenya Wildlife Service also, through the National irrigation Board has warned us against killing the birds. But what option do we have if our livelihoods and source of income is at stake?” Obiny asks.
Efforts to obtain a comment from the Kenya wildlife Service on the same have been futile.
Just next to his farm, birds have completely destroyed rice and are reporting very low yields, as others, none, having left the farms for the cows to graze on when they realized that the grain was gone and only the straw was left.
“On an acre of land, you are supposed to get 35 bags, but some farmers are getting only two or three bags or even only one bag. Some have even left the farms completely. Growing up, it was enough for one boy to scare bards in an entire ten acres of rice. Now it takes about four grown men to scare them on two acres,” he adds.
According to a review by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), human-wildlife conflict has been in existence for as long as humans and wild animals have shared the same landscapes and resources. However, the UN agency notes that conflict does not occur only in Africa. “Nowadays human-wildlife conflict exists in one form or another all over the world. Conflict between humans and crocodiles, for example, has been reported in 33 countries spanning the tropics and subtropics, and the problem probably exists in many more.”
“All continents and countries, whether developed or not, are affected by human-wildlife conflict. However there is an important distinction to be made between the level of vulnerability of agro-pastoralists in developing countries and that of well-off inhabitants of developed nations,” it says.
Experts, however, note that it is not an easy task to balance economic development, livelihood, and conservation.
“Balancing conservation and economic development is not easy nor for the faint-hearted, as it is anchored on sustainable development. Sustainable development has three pillars, all of which support each other namely ecological, socio-economic, and political. Majority of times, economics takes first precedence over ecological integrity,” says Brian Waswala, an environmental science lecturer at the Maasai Mara University.
Community members feel the impact of crop losses after investing time and resources. This has negative impacts on their social and economic well-being, not to forget exposes them to food insecurity.
Waswala recommends home-grown natural remedies to the conflict, saying that ecosystem restoration would work in ensuring that the birds have alternative source of food so they don’t only depend on the grains.
“It would thus be prudent to promote empathy and home-grown remedies in addressing the situation. These may include building capacity and creating alternative livelihoods such as eco-tourism in the region; promoting conservation awareness and training through CBOs; investing in active ecosystem restoration practices so the birds have alternative food as opposed to grains; and offering community members opportunities to study biodiversity (bird) behavior, association, diseases, etc. among other variables.”
“The use of raptors that detour, chase, and feed on the seed-eaters can also be employed. Also utilizing air-guns to actively kill the birds, but only to licensed users can also be looked into. These remedies are better off than the use of poisons which indiscriminately kill non-target species and leave toxic residue in the environment,” he adds.
Back at the West Kano irrigation scheme, farmers are desperately begging the government for assistance in controlling the birds. “Where it has come to right now, we are only left with one choice; to plead with the government to do something about these birds so that our lives can get back to normal and we can feed our children and send our children to school,” Obiny concludes.