Africa Network For Animal Welfare (ANAW)

Animal Welfare Updates - May 2020

Action Towards Cage Free Poultry Farming in Kenya

ANAW in collaboration with Open Wing Alliance has since May 2020 been undertaking a project to assess the current status and trends of battery cage poultry farming in Kenya’s 47 counties with the aim of preliminarily highlighting its impacts on human health, animal welfare and the environment.

Currently, Kenya has more than 31 million birds of poultry – this accounts for both domestic and commercial poultry farming. However, with increased land fragmentation, farmers have had to be ‘creative’ with the way they rear poultry for maximum productivity hence, sometimes, resulting to unfavourable methods that end up causing immense suffering to the birds and hence deprivation of their welfare.

Similarly, it is our considered view, therefore, that if the industry is left unregulated and unmonitored, it may bring about direct and indirect socio-cultural and economic impacts because of outbreak of diseases – owing to the way in which humans interact with, and handle the production, distribution, processing, and marketing of live poultry and poultry products.

Therefore, the one-year study will culminate in giving a holistic analysis of the poultry husbandry practices highlighting their impacts on human health, animal welfare and the environment with a view to making appropriate recommendations that ensure the birds’ suffering is minimised and their welfare observed.

Bushmeat Demand on the Rise in Kasighau Ranch, Among Other Wildlife Areas

In the month of May, ANAW Wildlife Guardians conducted a total of 28 patrols within expansive Kasighau Ranch. 37 giraffes, 104 zebras, 21 buffaloes, 21 elands and 20 warthogs were spotted. Dik-diks, ground squirrels, baboons, lesser kudus, impalas, and dwarf mongoose among other animals were also speckled. The team in their watchful errands, also received intelligence reports of four incidences relating to bushmeat hunting within the ranch. On 9th May, the team sighted a man entering the ranch with two dogs; and subsequently on 14th May, the guardians also received intelligence that there was an ongoing sale of giraffe meat in a nearby local market - Jora.

The team promptly shared the intelligence of all these incidences with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) - the government’s wildlife protection agency, for action.

Further, through the guardians’ hawk-eyed surveillance of the ranch, they sighted a middle aged man hunting in the ranch and reported him to KWS, to which he was later arrested by the agency, being in possession of three (3) kilograms of bushmeat believed to be of lesser kudu. This was a strong indication that cases of bushmeat poaching in both protected and unprotected areas were on all-time high as economic impacts of Covid-19 pandemic continued to bite even to the poor in rural villages.

Turtles’ Egg-Laying Season Gains Momentum

The month of May was a relatively busy for ANAW’s Turtle Rescue Program team, as the egg laying season gained momentum. During the month, the team recorded a total of 25 new nests. Ten of the nests were original while the other 15 were relocated, hence recording a total of 1772 hatchlings. A further four nests hatched under the monitors’ watch, raising the recording to 2230 live hatchlings.

The Team continues to pay close attention to the program especially in this time, characterized with minimal activities to the Indian Ocean shores occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Open Wing Alliance Virtual Global Summit

The Humane League and Open Wing Alliance held their annual Global Summit from 26-29 May 2020.The Summit was initially meant to be held physically in Poland but was adjusted to virtual due to Covid-19 pandemic. ANAW through Programmes Director, Josiah Ojwang, participated in the global summit and brought home valuable lessons on conducting virtual conferences which would be a key lesson for ANAW in shaping and hosting the upcoming virtual Africa Animal Welfare Conference (AAWC) 2020.

The focus of the Summit which was effective campaign and advocacy for achieving better welfare of farmed poultry, especially chicken was key to ANAW’s ongoing advocacy campaign against caged poultry farming in Kenya.

Appeal to Support Africa Conservation Education Fund (ACEF) Through the Global Giving Platform

ACEF is currently engaged in an accelerated online fundraising campaign through the Global Giving platform with an aim to raise $5,000 from at least 40 donors between June 8 – 26, 2020.

This project, when actualized will provide individual desks for school-going children who attend rural, under-resourced schools and who come from families who live within or next to the wildlife areas of the Tsavo National Parks’ ecosystem in Kenya. In this semi-arid area, with distant water points, the project will also create water and sanitation facilities for the school communities hence making the schools’ environment safer for learning in post-covid-19 era.

The project will also solve the issue of overcrowding in classrooms by providing desks, as personal learning space for each pupil and allow for social distancing among pupils in classes. This noble effort will give confidence to parents and teachers to allow children back to school in September 2020, if the government’s guidelines on school resumption remains as earlier on communicated.

Kindly click onto the link below to learn more on the initiative and to support: Educate children of communities in wildlife areas (47324) .