Is Somalia now a private hunting reserve for the US?

November 12, 2008

Is Somalia now a private hunting reserve for the US?

Posted by xcroc under environment, Somalia | Tags: wildlife |
[11] Comments

Somali ostrich, possibly dangerous, probably not a terrorist

extraordinary rendition of Somali wildlife

Has Somalian wildlife been enlisted by al Qaeda? Are the ostriches and oryx harboring terrorists? Or is Somalia just on the receiving end of another form of piracy?

Reported by Mareeg Online:

People living along the pirate-infested central Somalia coastline have been scared by helicopters bearing US flags.
…
The US troops in Somalia are now hunting the country’s wildlife under the guise of fighting pirates or protecting the Somali coastline.

The environmentalists have especially pointed their finger of blame at the administrations Some Somali regions of exporting the illegally commodities and the national properties those are reportedly signed private contracts with foreign agencies.

They have threatened that everything is now being recorded and one day those responsible and those giving them the facilitation for the export will be brought before the justice.

And from Garowe Online:

“Three helicopters landed three separate days,” said elder Mohamed Hussein Warsame, quoting witnesses and community leaders.

Soldiers jumped out of the helicopters and loaded live animals, including deer and ostriches, the he added. The helicopters then returned to a warship off the coast.

Mr. Warsame said the foreign soldiers used a technique to subdue the animals, some of which are extremely fast and agile.

He indicated that the identity of the warships remained unknown, but that locals have reported seeing the American flag hovering above one of the warships in the distance.

Foreign warships from a number of countries, mainly in the West, are patrolling Somalia’s waters in an international anti-piracy campaign.

Since 1991, when the country’s last government imploded, Somalia’s long and unprotected coastline became subject to illegal practices including overfishing and toxic waste dumping.

Is this one of the benefits to local people of “nation building” and “peace keeping” in the “ungoverned spaces”, to be robbed of your wildlife heritage?

UPDATE Oct.23, 2009

b real sends this latest news from IRIN on poaching by helicopter:

IRIN covered the story on the mystery poachers swooping out of the sky and rustling up some of the local game

Puntland investigating “flying poachers”

NAIROBI, 22 October 2009 (IRIN) – Authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, are compiling data on foreign helicopters said to be poaching and stealing wildlife from the area while at the same time scaring off the farm animals.

“We have been getting reports in the past few months of unidentified helicopters swooping in from the sea and attacking and taking wildlife,” Abdiqani Yusuf Ade, Puntland’s Environment Minister, told IRIN.

He said the authorities did not have a clear picture of “who was involved or from what countries”.

Ade said Puntland was calling on countries whose forces were stationed off the Somali coast as part of the anti-piracy efforts to stop the poaching if they were involved.

He said the authorities had asked residents in the coastal villages to take photographs of the helicopters. “We are trying to get visual evidence to show the world. If the information we are getting is correct, what is happening is illegal,” he said. “These forces are here to fight piracy; they should not be poaching our natural resources.”

Abdiaziz Aw Yusuf, the district commissioner of Jariban, near the area where the helicopters are alleged to be poaching, told IRIN it had been going on for some time. “They usually operate in an area between the coastal villages of Eil Danan and Dhinowda Digdigle.”

He said the helicopters scattered the wildlife and once they had landed, two or three men captured the animals. He said the most common game in the area was gazelle and ostrich.

Yusuf said the noise of the helicopters was affecting the local population and their livestock. Many were lost after being frightened by the planes and stampeding. He said some had been eaten by predators.

“We have forwarded our complaints and what information we have collected to the Puntland government,” Yusuf said.

Ahmed Aden, an elder in Garad town, 5km south of the area, told IRIN the helicopters came from ships that could be seen from the land.

Aden said because the area was flat and grassy, it was easy for the helicopters to land. He said the dust raised disoriented the animals, allowing the men on board to capture them.

“It has become normal to see them on a daily basis,” Aden said. “They [foreign forces] claim to be guarding against pirates but who is guarding us and our resources against them?”

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11 Responses to “Is Somalia now a private hunting reserve for the US?”

John Says:

November 13, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Can you spell V-E-N-A-L-I-T-Y ?

Reply
b real Says:

August 27, 2009 at 8:48 pm
garowe online: Helicopters hunt wildlife, residents say

27 Aug 27, 2009 – 9:47:34 AM

Gara’ad, Somalia:- (Garowe Online) Residents and elders in the Somali Coastal village of Gara’ad have voiced concern over helicopters hunting various types of wildlife, including ostrich and gazelles, Radio Garowe has reported.

According to the elders who have made contact with the Puntland-based radio, helicopters have been used to dart the wildlife before taking them onboard.

“For the last five days, the hunters have been anesthetizing the animals before taking them onboard to ships based on the high seas” said Tahug Muse Ahmed, one of the elders who made contact with the Radio.

He added that local elders have agreed to conserve the wildlife nine years ago and imposed fines on anybody held on hunting after the wildlife in the area was close to extinction.

However, it is not clear which country owns the helicopters but international naval powers, including NATO have deployed warships to the waters off Somalia over past years to escort aid-carrying ships bound to Somalia and to protect the maritime trade routes from Somali pirates.

Reply
xcroc Says:

August 28, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Rob from the poor, give to the rich. There are fewer and fewer other possible justifications to explain the US and international involvement in Somalia. Renditioning wildlife is way over the top, particularly when the local people have been struggling to conserve them.

Since the US was implicated previously, I suspect they are still at it. They may have learned to hide their insignia. There may well be others in the international navy doing the same thing.

I wonder what they are doing with the wildlife. If they are darting them rather than shooting them, I’m guessing possibly selling to zoos, and maybe more likely, selling to canned hunts for the rich people who imagine they are great hunters, like Cheney for one.

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b real Says:

August 28, 2009 at 11:16 pm
that there are continuing reports of this activity lends support to it being more than just some form of propaganda, as a couple of armchair warriors posited last fall. canned hunts, private collectors, illicit bush meat, sailors desiring more fresh meats than poached tuna & other marine life… who knows what’s really going on? hopefully the zoos in most countries have stringent procedures on how & who they acquire specimens from

Reply
b real Says:

August 30, 2009 at 11:58 pm
shabelle media ran a story too

Elders complain about helicopters flying over parts of central Somalia

GALKA’O (Sh. Network) – the traditional elders in several villages in mudug region are complaining about helicopters flying over parts of central Somalia with low level, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Sunday.

One of the traditional elders in Gara’ad village in the area where the airplanes revolving told Shabelle radio that they were complaining about helicopters hunting the wild animals of their villages in Mudug region.

“We have great problem with the helicopters those are eliminating our wild animals. These helicopters flied from the war ships in the Somali coast specially Gara’ad village in Mudug region,” one of the elders said. The pastoralists have also great problems with the planes, he added.

Lastly the traditional elders of Gara’ad village called for the officials Puntland administration in Galka’o town in Mudug region to solve the problems of the people about the helicopters.

might want to check the menus on some of those warships

Reply
b real Says:

September 29, 2009 at 10:58 pm
garowe online: Somalia nomads complain of foreign military ‘stealing wildlife’

Residents in Somalia’s Puntland State are frequently reporting of foreign helicopters hunting wildlife in rural and coastal areas, Radio Garowe reports.

The reports began in Nov. 2008 and have impacted towns and villages in Puntland’s Nugal, Karkar and Mudug regions.

On Tuesday, a Somali livestock herder named Osman “Zoppe” Hassan Abdirahman who lives in Nugal region’s Godobjiran district reported that foreign helicopters are “terrorizing” local populations.

“I saw with my own eyes a military helicopter flying overhead with a net full of deer hanging below,” Mr. Zoppe said via a telephone interview on Radio Garowe’s Good Morning program.

He described the military helicopters as “spraying the wildlife” before collecting them in big nets and flying away. “Some of my livestock were killed by the spray,” he added, while describing the spray as “a type of poison.”

Mr. Zoppe said the helicopters mostly “collect deer and pigs in the wild” and said local nomad families are “terrorized” by the helicopter’s actions.

He said helicopters from foreign naval warships patrolling Somalia’s long coast, especially the waters around Puntland State, as responsible for hunting the wildlife.

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b real Says:

September 29, 2009 at 11:55 pm
horseed media: Foreign navy forces blamed for looting Somali wild life

“Unknown military helicopters, flying from navy ships off the coast of Somalia looted the wild life in Puntland.” Adan Ahmed a Traditional leader in Hafun district said Tuesday. Helicopters flying in low altitude are routinely stealing the wild life in Somalia, he said.

“the residents of Hafun district and the wild life are terrorized by these helicopters and planes. They are looting the wild life by dropping nets and catching the small number of wild life left in the region,” he said.

Adan Ahmed said the planes were routinely taking away wild life, for the past 10 days, in an exclusive interview with Horseed Media.

“… we have informed the district officials, who say they can do nothing about these planes….we can see with our own eyes the helicopters taking off from big ships, that are anchored near Hafun beach…”, Ahmed added.

“…every night we see the lights of the ships, and in the morning these planes took off from the ships, they fly over the land in search for wild animals…we are calling of the Puntland administration to do something….” he said.

“we are told that these navy ships are hunting Somali pirates…but what we see only is, our wild life being looted in front of our own eyes…,” he said.

For the past few weeks, similar stories of wild life being looted by military helicopters, were also told by the elders in Gara’ad district, in Mudug region of Somalia.

Source: Horseed Media

ecoterra intl: Let’s nab the foreign poachers – ECOTERRA sets out award

“This is now the fourth major incident. We have to get to the base of it and see the culprits convicted,” says Dr. Abdulkadir S. Elmi, the country officer of ECOTERRA Intl. in Somalia.

AWARD TO CONVICT FOREIGN WILDLIFE-POACHERS IN SOMALIA.

“ECOTERRA therefore decided to set out a substantial award to reward any person or group which brings substantial evidence, suitable to convict any foreign soldier, a unit of a military force, the country or the command which is involved in the harassment, capture or killing of any wild species in Somalia”.

First the wildlife hunting by foreign troopers in helicopters was reported from Harardheere, then South of Kismayo, then Garacad and now from Hafun and the involvement of people of Somali origin, who serve on these warships and misguide the foreign troopers can not be ruled out.

When the first incident happened ECOTERRA Intl. got in contact with the US Naval Attaché in Nairobi, The US command in Bahrain as well as CENTCOM and AFRICOM, because it was reported that US American choppers were involved. But while US Commander Scott E. Organ tried to convince the environmental protection group that it would be nearly impossible for a US-American helicopter pilot to capture and bring wildlife to an American warship, the official answers from the US-American commands are still outstanding.

“Given the history of US-American poaching in Somalia for Zoos and biological or medical research, we are not so sure if there is no truth behind these local reports,” says Dr. Abdulkadir and recalls that the Americans and Israelis captured the strictly protected Somali Wild Ass in the remote Nugal Valley in clandestine operations and during a similar uncontrolled time of the Somali history. “This is why San Diego Zoo has this rare Somali species in their cages” the wildlife protector explains.

Of the different nations plying the waters off Somalia and having helicopters as well as frustrated and maybe bored pilots with them, many could be those who have been seen now several times to engage in such criminal activities.

“Any hunting of wildlife is strictly forbidden by law in Somalia and the ECOTERRA award can be given to anybody, who provides tangible evidence leading to the establishment of the truth and the prosecution of the culprits.”

ECOTERRA also encourages concious officers on the warships around Somalia to tell the truth behind these repeated reports. Even anonymously leaked information is welcome by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org and will be treated confidential.

“If it is true, we have to stop the menace immediately and we are also appealing to the many good soldiers on these warships and helicopters to interfere and stop any case of poaching, collection of rare plants or damage to the natural environment of Somalia – be it on land or at sea,” added the wildlife biologist and rangeland manager.

Reply
xcroc Says:

October 2, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I surely hope the offered reward brings in some information. It would be really nice if they could convict some of those in the helicopters, though I won’t hold my breath. And spraying poison sounds truly appalling, especially not just killing the wild animals but people’s farm animals and livelihoods. And stealing rare animals and the wildlife is sickening. The reverse Robin Hoods are really busy.

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b real Says:

October 3, 2009 at 1:10 am
when i read it, i was thinking that maybe the “poison” was actually just some form of tranquilizer for rendering the wildlife easier to pluck out of the bush w/o much damage. a cloud gets sprayed & animals fall out, which could certainly look like they were being poisoned. but the one witness says some of his livestock was killed by it, so it’s hard to know what to make of it all & whether other motives come into play here too.

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xcroc Says:

October 4, 2009 at 9:31 am
I assumed it was tranquilizers too until the guy talked about his dead animals. I assumed food or collecting as the motive. A poison that effective that would still be safe to eat and not contaminate is puzzling. Thinking in terms of the range of other potential motives is quite unsettling.

Reply
b real Says:

October 4, 2009 at 12:24 pm
there was mention in another garowe online article that says the french fleet is denying any knowledge of these activities, which, on its face, doesn’t mean a whole lot

Puntland’s Fisheries Minister went on to say that discussions with the French military commanders included media reports of foreign military helicopters hunting wildlife along Somalia’s long coastline, especially the Puntland regions.

The French commanders said they are “not involved” and did “not know who is behind” cases of foreign military helicopters hunting wildlife, including deer, ostrich and pigs, in rural and coastal areas of Somalia.

“As the Ministry of Fisheries, we are in no position to stop illegal acts of hunting wildlife but we will investigate,” Minister Aden said.

Lastly, Puntland’s Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister urged the Somali public to understand that “foreign military off the Somali coast are not working for Somali interests but are pursuing their own interests.”

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