Simon Thomsett

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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