Advance Community Based Conservation of Wattled Crane and Wetland Habitat

Project Animal(s) : Wattled Cranes
Project Category : Birds
Project Region : Africa
Project Type : Conservation
Project URL : https://www.rufford.org/projects/abebayehu_aticho_mentsiro
Project is timebound? : Yes

Project Start Date : February 28, 2018

Wattled Cranes are listed as a vulnerable species in IUCN red list. It is an endemic species to Africa and specialized to wetland habitats (Meine and Archibald 1996). The main populations of this species is exists in 11 African countries; Ethiopia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. The species is declining rapid in most of the range countries (Beilfuss et al. 2007). The causes of population decline are loss and degradation of wetlands as a result of upstream river regulation, intensified agriculture, mining, drainage, and invasive species. Other threats include nest disturbance and destruction, grass-burning regimes, poisoning, collision with utility lines, direct consumption of chicks, persecution, traditional medicine, increasing livestock farming, wars, desertification, and agrochemicals.

Accordingly, the project will intend to realize the following objectives:

• to increase breeding success of WC through scaling-up of capable conservation practices,
• to improve school children (students) engagement in ecological (water bird, and wetland) and conservation exercises,
• to assess perception and attitude of local community on WC and its habitat (mainly, wetland)

Project Agency : The Rufford Foundation

Project Researcher : Abebayehu Aticho Mentsiro

Project Researcher Contact : abebayehu.aticho@ju.edu.et

Additional Information :

Read about Abebayehu's previous project- https://www.rufford.org/projects/abebayehu_aticho_mentsiro