Simon Thomsett

Category: Crowned Eagles | Date: Apr 08 2008 | By: admin

The release cont…

In the raising and final release of precious eagles you have this manic sweep of emotions. Everything seems to depend upon the outcome. Sure there is little to be gained in rubbing ones’ face in disappointment, just as much as there is little to be had in only bragging about accomplishments. Both in moderation are fine.

Some hazards facing released eagles just cannot be avoided, they can only be confronted. In working with wildlife, risks have to be taken. This is not often understood by the public, who for the worst possible reasons other than their numerical abundance, are the ones that increasingly have dominion over the direction of wildlife conservation. Evolution isn’t very fair even in the best circumstances, and even they can’t stop it. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they do not. Wild animals in the wild are governed a lot by luck and they gamble each day against the very high odds of survival.

‘Wildlife Management’ means that one tries to make sure that potential problems are avoided. This is intervention of a ‘natural’ process and of course there are those critics that seize upon this and say one must leave everything alone.

Hopefully releases made with the forethought of people and the pot-luck of eagles will end up with a better chance than most. This is a positive step in a sea of opposition facing eagles today.

The good news is that, on the whole, with the help of many organisations and individuals we have succeeded in successfully producing and releasing one of Africa’s largest and most powerful forest eagles. We are proud of the fact that far from falling behind the rest of the world, as is self-depreciatingly often assumed to be the case, we have got a long way in this small aspect of wildlife management. These successes may equal or exceed those made elsewhere in the ‘western’ world in similar projects. For sure this miniscule success pales against the juggernaut of the continent’s problems, but they are successes nevertheless.

Africa is a continent of extremes, with vast depressing troughs and wonderful peaks, great tragedy and joy, human poor and unimaginably wealthy, rain and drought. This fatalism and grandeur within the continent is romanced in endless novels and it does influence us too. Staring out of a bouncing Land Rover one view may be filled with bountiful natural wonder…turn around and it may be unimaginably bad. It is rather manic in character and wildlife conservation seems to go along with it.

The final and core of the release of the Crowned Eagles to follow soon…

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Category: Crowned Eagles, Tsavo National Park | Date: Apr 02 2008 | By: admin

Photo 1. Mutu. Sub-adult male Crowned Eagle.

In 2005 friends and I released 3 Crowned Eagles. Two were born at home the other was brought in as a wild rehab. They were raised and hunted at wild prey. We took them to a wild and remote place in northern Kenya called Kitich. Here I met interesting people, a conservation area under passionate care and had a number of rare moments that I share here in diary form.

I had then tried to put the entry out into a blog, but had no idea how it all worked and as a result it sat idle in a computer that has since destroyed itself. I found it again and Paula Kahumbu at Wildlife Direct thought that I could re-submit it in parts via this blog.
Here goes.

It isn’t easy to launch straight into this particular subject without any lead-up or background. A few paragraphs need to explain where, why and how we got into the eagle release programme.

I am much too cynical to only present the up-beat chipper side of our work. I suspect that we should, just to make sure everyone is happy and positive and dish out the money.

Reports of great success from the field go together with pats on the back, limelight kudos and good career prospects. No-one is going to read a miserable report (don’t worry this story ends well!). If one is clever one can make a big deal out of a small thing. While doing so it would be foolish to mention the failures in the project, the mistakes, the problems….for it will not be received well by ones’ colleagues, readers or supporters. But if one tells the truth surely everyone will be that much better informed?
There is so much to learn from the downsides. If anyone is going to support wildlife work I’d much rather we’d be honest from the beginning and tell them that failure and disappointment are all part of the deal. If they don’t accept this then they (and us) aren’t being realistic. In my experience I’d rather have no support than adhere to goofy utopian ideals or ludicrously high expectations set for us. Nothing is more intimidating than to enter a project with the mandate for success. In wildlife releases it is literally do or die, and one can go down with the ship.

Idealism plagues wildlife management today. It always will. I am hopelessly attached to “my” eagles and would do all that is possible to save them. I am as bad as everyone else and I am not stupid. It would be career suicide to moan about the impossibility of projects and the hopelessness of doing anything about wildlife conservation in the face of burgeoning humanity. No one is going to support you if you stare unshaven and unkempt at the contents of a brown paper bag for inspiration. Sometimes you feel like it. But equally sometimes you feel so insanely happy at the wonder of nature and the ability to make a difference that you have all the energy in the world. You wish others would see it too, instead of being miserable stuck in the mud policy makers…get out and be pro-active!

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