40 2GM Thursday December 3 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
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Donations may be refunded only in exceptional
circumstances. Ts&Cs applyPark, southern Kenya. The buzzing
alone is usually enough to scare away
invading elephants but if they get too
close the bees fly out and sting the soft
skin around their ears. It causes only
mild discomfort but sends them run-
ning, leaving the crops unharmed. As a
bonus, the farmers can harvest and sell
honey from the hives.
Muuli Wambua, 41, said: “Before the
beehive fences life was horrible. The
elephants would come and trample
your farm and destroy everything, but
now I’ve seen real changes.”botswana
Some species of bird, fish, butterfly and
reptile have evolved markings on their
bodies that resemble eyes, deterring
predators by fooling them into thinking
they are being watched.
The Botswana Predator Conserva-
tion Trust (BPCT), also supported byTusk, has taken a note from nature’s
book, painting large eyes on the back-
sides of cattle to keep hunting lions at
bay.
“It has made a statistically significant
difference,” said John McNutt, director
of the BPCT, who said some herders
could lose up to 100 cattle in six
months, with many lions killed every
year in retaliation. “We’ve had no cattle
taken by lions during our experiment.”
Tusk funds the BPCT’s conflict
reduction schemes and its Coaching
Conservation education programme,
which uses sport to teach young people
about the need to protect the wild
animals around them.
As Tusk explains: “Finding space for
both people and wildlife to co-exist is
the ultimate conservation challenge.”christmas
appeal
The charity Tusk is
using wit and ingenuity
to respond to a
jumbo-sized challenge.
Kaya Burgess reports
Keeping the peace between man
and beast on Africa’s farmlands
EDWARD SELFE/BEN YEXLEY/TUSKFarmers are being taught to scare elephants away rather than kill them. Below: eyes painted on cattle can keep lions at baySpears, rifles and poison are often the
weapons of choice for African farmers
trying to defend their land from
marauding lions and elephants, but
ping-pong balls, beehives and paint-
brushes can make better deterrents.
Few of the continent’s endangered
species are susceptible to Covid-19 but
they have been dying in rising numbers
during a pandemic that has increased
the economic pressure on communi-
ties. Poaching and hunting remain
grave problems but a growing threat
has come from those who kill not for
profit, food or sport, but simply to
defend their livelihoods. As human
populations expand, so does the
demand for farmland, often encroach-
ing into the habitats of wild animals.
Farmers can ill afford to lose cattle to
lions and crops to hungry elephants,
the more so now that the pandemic has
decimated tourism, jobs and incomes
across Africa. It makes farmers even
keener to fight back.
Tusk, one of the charities supported
by this year’s Times and Sunday Times
Christmas appeal, protects more than
40 endangered species by finding inno-
vative ways to reduce conflict between
humans and animals. With its support,
farmers and herders are discovering
that they do not have to kill their wild
neighbours if they can find ingenious
ways of scaring them away.
Tusk provides funding and support
to local conservation groups in 20 Afri-
can countries. All donations to Tusk
through the Times appeal up to
£150,000 will be doubled by the Nick
Maughan Foundation, run by the Brit-
ish businessman and philanthropist.
zambia
Armed with a home-made gun built
from pipes and a welder’s gas lighter,
Jebson Tembo, 57, patrols the outskirts
of a village for elephants. A single raid
from a beast with a taste for
maize or mangos can
destroy a farmer’s
harvest and leave
him destitute.
When Mr
Tembo sees an
elephant he
takes aim and
fires, but what
flies out from
the pipe is not a
bullet but a ping-
pong ball filled
with ground chilli
and petrol. It causes
little pain, but one sniff of
the pungent mixture sends the
elephant hurrying away unharmed,
with a tickle in its trunk rather than a
bullet in its brain. “These elephants
were killed for a long time. Now people
are learning to live with them,” Mr
Tembo told The Times.
The “chilli bombers” are built at a cost
of about £50 by the Conservation South
Luangwa (CSL) group in
Zambia, which has 23
people on patrol duty.
Mr Tembo works for
its “human-wildlife
conflict” team and
trains the farmers to
use the devices.
Tusk helps to fund
CSL’s operating costs,
anti-poaching teams,
aerial surveillance units
and veterinary work.kenya
Elephants in children’s films are terri-
fied of mice, but in reality bees cause
them most distress.
The Tsavo Trust in Kenya, with
support from Tusk, strings wooden
beehives on wires around the edges of
farmers’ fields on the Kamungi Con-
servancy in the Tsavo East National£460,000 and counting...
The generosity of readers has the
Times and Sunday Times Christmas
Appeal off to a flying start, with
more than £460,000 raised since
the launch on Friday.
About £136,000 has been given to
FareShare, £56,000 to Sported and
£42,000 to Tusk. Sir Alex Ferguson
and Sir Michael Moritz are doubling
every pound donated to FareShare,
while the Nick Maughan Foundation
is doubling donations to Tusk up to
£150,000. This, along with Gift Aid,
which allows charities to reclaim tax
on your donations, promises to take
h a taste for the total even higher.
os can
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El h t i hildLucky numbers line up
for 20 lottery entrants
South Africa The organisers of
the Powerball lottery have denied
claims of fraud after the winning
numbers for Tuesday’s game were
given as 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, followed
by the Powerball number of 10.
Twenty players hit the jackpot,
winning 5.7 million rand
(£280,000) each. “These numbers
may be unexpected but we see
many players opt to play these
sequences,” they tweeted. (AFP)Tens of thousands flee
as cyclone roars in
Sri Lanka Tropical Cyclone
Burevi was expected to bring up
to 20cm of rain and winds
reaching 60mph to eastern
Sri Lanka last night. Some 75,000
people were moved from their
homes into hundreds of relief
centres. Disaster management
officials said that the cyclone was
expected to damage coastal
buildings and power lines and
cause flash floods. (Reuters)Ethiopia allows UN to
deliver aid in Tigray
Ethiopia The government has
signed a deal giving the United
Nations access to bring aid to the
northern region of Tigray after
weeks of fighting. Thousands
have died and many more fled
into Sudan, according to the
International Crisis Group, after
Ethiopia targeted the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front. The
UN has warned of a possible
humanitarian catastrophe. (AFP)Bobcat burnt in blaze
ready to be released
United States A young bobcat
burnt in a Californian wildfire is
to be returned to the wild, having
doubled in weight to 9lb since
being found emaciated six weeks
ago. Wildlife workers said they
were thrilled at its progres. The
fire in the San Bernardino forest
was started by fireworks from a
gender reveal party in the town
of Yucaipa. Homes were burnt
down and a firefighter died. (AP)Abuse claim woman
attacks Chinese justice
China A woman who accused a
television host of sexual assault
told supporters at a Beijing court
she hoped that her case would
encourage other victims to fight
censorship and official resistance
to their complaints. The hearing
of Zhou Xiaoxuan’s case against
Zhu Jun, who she says forcibly
kissed her in 2014, was delayed
for two years. Mr Zhu has
denied the allegation. (AP)Sisi regime executes 57
people in two months
Egypt A total of 57 men and
women have been executed in
the past two months, up from 32
for all of last year, according to
Amnesty International. “The
Egyptian authorities have
embarked on a horrifying
execution spree,” said Philip
Luther, a director of the
human rights group. At least 15 of
those killed are said to have been
sentenced in cases related to
political violence after “unfair
trials”. President Sisi has said
that there are no political
prisoners and that stability and
security are paramount. About
3,000 people are said to have
been sentenced to death since he
took power in 2014. (Reuters)