The Snares to Wares Initiative works with youth (susceptible to going into poaching) and converted poachers to transform the wire from snares into delicate, handcrafted sculptures of the wildlife we see every day within the park from lions to elephants to giraffes. This program is in collaboration with researchers from both the University of Oxford, in the UK, and Makerere University, in Kampala.
Murchison Falls National Park, where we are based, has the highest concentration of illegal wire snares in the world, and this has devastating effects on our much-loved local wildlife. Snare injuries can often lead to individuals dying even if the actual injury is not fatal- simply as they cannot keep up. As an organization, we remove more than 10,000 snares every year, which otherwise may have led to significant wildlife mortality.
