Snare and Gun Recovery Impact on Wildlife

Recovery of snares and guns was a major impetus behind the inception of COMACO as a way to reduce these threats to wildlife. Prior to COMACO it was estimated that well over 3000 wild animals were being killed annually from snares in the Luangwa Valley. It was reasoned that if farmers could see the benefits from conservation farming and more favorable markets through their partnership with COMACO, then farmers would be willing to surrender their snares and illegal firearms and adopt livelihoods more compatible with wildlife conservation. The recovery process was not a passive one but instead, the COMACO program required participants to demonstrate their desire to transform into more sustainable livelihoods by surrendering their snares and guns if they wanted to be eligible to a range of livelihood benefits associated with COMACO.

Initially the COMACO program used World Food Program maize as part of the process of learning better farming practices and adopting these practices to receive maize. Part of the conditionality for receiving maize also required farmers to surrender snares as part of their commitment to replace their dependence on snaring as a substitute for farming for adoption of improved farming practices that could better sustain their food security needs. This program of surrendering snares as part of the WFP food rationing extended from 2001 to 2005, and in 2006 COMACO replaced WFP food with market incentives to continue the process of surrendering snares and guns and complying with a voluntary ban on the use of snares.

The table below show the total number of snares removed from the different chiefsdoms from 2001 to 2005 (Feira area included Mpuka, Mburuma and Mpansha chiefs areas).

Some of the 40,000 snares and 800 firearms surrendered by farmers living in the Luangwa Valley ecosystem.

Carnivores like lion, leopard, and wild dog, as well as scavengers like hyenas, as particularly vulnerable to snares when they are attracted to an animal already impaled by a snare. Frequently, people set multiple snares in an area and as a lion or hyena come to snared animal, they too become snared and killed.

In 2000 when interviewing a professional safari hunter in Mwanya area, for example, 3 out of 5 lions hunted by his clients had either fresh wire injuries or old scars from previous wire cuts. Because of their low density, mortality from snares among carnivores and scavengers often go unnoticed and it is extremely difficult to know the exact number killed by snares, though it is thought that snaring could be one of the major threats affecting this group of animals.

In 1999 and from 2003 to 2006, a total of 269 hunting clients were surveyed for this information. Table 7 gives a comparison between years prior to COMACO (1999) and during the COMACO intervention (2003 - 2006), of the average annual percentage of these safari-hunting clients who complained of snare use during their hunt. Three of the four hunting areas, Chikwa, Chifunda and Mwanya, showed dramatic decreases in snare complaints during the initial stage of COMACO, with Chikwa area having no complaints throughout the period up to 2006. Chanjuzi area, which represents two chiefs areas, Chitungulu and Kasembe, showed a reduction and then replacement, indicating that cheating did indeed begin to occur, but varied between chiefdoms. This trend has become widespread in 2006 with large increases in client complaints over snares encountered for all areas. This represents an anomaly of expected results, given the increase in food security and the expected reduction in snaring to follow from improved food security.

While the data above clearly show snaring has not stopped and in some selected areas may have increased in 2006, the total number of snares being used has declined appreciably, based on data collected by wildlife scouts patrolling the same areas where the safari client data were taken. As shown in the figure to the left, from 2004 to 2006 total number of snares collected by scouts has dropped by over 50%, based on equivalent, normalized number of patrols taken during the year.

These results suggest COMACO has not stopped snaring but has reduced its incidence, suggesting the model require continued development to use additional means to further reduce the use of snares. One approach COMACO is considering is to seek help from other stakeholders, such as Zambia Wildlife Authority and safari operators, both of whom benefit from COMACO through increased animal license sales and private sector transactions, respectively. Each could add an extra $0.10 per kg of commodity sold to COMACO if their respective conditions of no snares found by clients on safari or by scouts on patrol were met. Total costs to both for a given year in a particular hunting area would be approximately $1500, but the return would be higher survivorship of those species whose economic value is far more than $1500. By adding an extra $0.20 if both stakeholders were to agree, farmers would gain substantially, approximately 20% of the farm-based income, provided all members of the community were committed to legal market incentives and resisted snaring. COMACO will attempt this modification of the model in 2007. BACK TO TOP