Got Baboons in Your Crops? Offer Them a Snake Sandwich

26 July 2010

A field destroyed by wild elephants in Rangapara, in India

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

When farmers and wild animals share land, conflicts can be hard to prevent. But the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is trying to help.

The FAO and other groups are developing what they call the Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Toolkit. This toolkit is a collection of advice and information that farmers in southern Africa have been testing.

Wild animals are considered a top problem for the physical and economic security of rural populations in Africa.

FAO official Rene Czudek says the main aim is to provide low-cost methods to deal with wild animals without harming them.

For example, some farmers in Kenya use donkeys to guard against lions and cheetahs.

In Zambia and Mozambique, crocodiles are blamed for more deaths than any other animal. Nile crocodiles kill an estimated three hundred people each year in Mozambique alone.

Strong fencing at watering points can offer protection. And people should always enter the water several at a time, in groups armed with weapons like sticks and stones, axes and spears.

But the FAO also points out that crocodile attacks are less likely in places that have not been overfished.

The toolkit also has ideas to control baboons. These large monkeys raid crops and they can kill sheep and other livestock.