60 Minutes recently aired a segment about cattle herders in Kenya using a lethal poison to dispatch lions. The substance is tasteless and odorless so its easy to apply to a cow carcass and quickly dispatch lions, as well as any other animals that scavenge at the laced meat so many spotted hyena, jackals and vultures are also poisoned. Dr. Laurence Frank heads up lion studies in two areas of the country and estimates over 30 lion poisonings in one area and 35 to 40 documented in his other study location, however, it is suspected that many more killings go undocumented. The 60 Minutes focus was on the poisonous substance, Furadan, manufactured and distributed by a Philadelphia based company (FMC Corp) - FMC's response to the story - for insect control on crops. However, it is extremely cheap and readily available and thus being used for lion control as well now.
View the 60 Minutes Video Here
It goes beyond the scope of the television piece but of course the larger issue is the ongoing conflict of predators and humans that own livestock. In this area of Kenya there is a fund via the Lion Guardians that will pay compensation for livestock. This helps short term but does nothing to reduce predation, simply buys forgiveness. While it has made a positive impact the large numbers of poisoning clearly demonstrate that a new solution needs to be found. This is exactly what my research hopes to address by examining the use of conditioned taste aversion to mitigate conflicts and directly reduce the problem of predation on livestock.
It appears that reaction to the 60 Minutes report is going to result in the full withdrawl of Furadan from all African Countries. This is fantastic news as it removes one easy agent of destruction but the underlying issue with predator/livestock conflict remains as the killing will not stop until this conflict is successfully mitigated, something I firmly believe my conditioned taste aversion research efforts can play a key role in doing once we obtain sufficient funding for our field studies.