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CWAC Newsletter No.27

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CWAC Newsletter No.27 Avian Demography Unit Department of Statistical Sciences University of Cape Town Rondebosch 7701 South Africa Tel. (021) 650-4698 Fax. (021) 650-3434 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.aviandemographyunit.org COORDINATED WATERBIRD COUNTS (CWAC) NEWSLETTER 27 January 2007 Table 1: Breakdown of CWAC sites surveyed on Dear CWACers a regular basis during the past five summer seasons. The New Year has started with a bang! I have Total No of already received the first summer counts from a registered No of Sites (%) Season sites surveyed Surveyed couple of very enthusiastic counters up country – Summer Gauteng and Mpumalanga to be exact! 2002 400 289 72 Summer May this year be a landmark year for all of us. 2003 446 317 71 Whatever you plan to achieve this year, and I Summer 2004 486 340 70 hope there are some waterbird counts in there, I Summer trust that you will succeed. All the best for 2005 510 379 74 2007! Summer 2006 554 387 70 CWAC growth – the past five years Table 2: Breakdown of CWAC sites surveyed on So how has the CWAC project been doing the a regular basis during the past five winter last five years? Many people will argue that is seasons. has been performing well. Others will argue the Total No of registered No of Sites (%) opposite. My opinion, given the constraints of Season sites surveyed Surveyed time and money within the ADU, is that we have Winter made progress. 2002 431 260 60 Winter I have collated some figures to indicate how the 2003 460 307 67 Winter project has grown over the past five years. 2004 501 343 68 When we talk about growth, we can not simply Winter look at the number of new sites that are being 2005 548 379 69 added every season. We have to look at what Winter percentage of the total number of sites is being 2006 573 377 (est.) 66 (est.) surveyed on a regular basis. For this reason I have indicated these figures in Table 1 and 2. The results indicate that there has been a gradual increase in the number of registered sites during the past five years. At the start of 2002 we had If you would like to give exposure to a particular 400 sites, whereas now we have a total of 573 waterbird species, or have a point of concern registered sites. New sites are being added on a and you would like to raise it through the CWAC regular basis as more people participate in the newsletter, please contact me. project, and additional sites are being counted by existing participants. 1 Of more importance however is the percentage various bird species on a global scale. One can of these sites that are being surveyed on a regular expect that the effects on wetlands and their basis. The results are positive with the summer associated plants and animals could be quite counts being consistently counted above 70% severe, especially in our southern African region. (Table 1). Winter counts are slightly lower, but seem steady at above 65% (Table 2). How then do we hope to protect these natural resources? We believe that a small part of the This is good news as it means that we are solution lies in making data available. This continuing to count a good sample of CWAC would enable stakeholders across various sites on a regular basis, and not losing older industries to be more informed about the registered sites at the expense of newly conservation significance of wetlands, and what registered ones. This is crucial for determining role these systems play in supporting long-term waterbird trends at wetlands and being ecosystems. Furthermore, the CWAC data is to one of the aims of the CWAC project, it is be used to supplement state of the environment important that we continue this trend. and biodiversity reports as well as provide guidance towards national policy formulation. On this note I urge participants to rather continue your counts at current CWAC sites as opposed to For a long time now, the CWAC project has dropping these and registering new sites. For been collecting waterbird data from all over this reason it is also vitally important that we try South Africa. There is a great demand for this and continue counts at wetlands for as long as information to be made available to the public, possible. If you have to discontinue counts at a but in order to achieve this requires time and wetland, for what ever reason, try and get other money. As mentioned, SANBI and the ADU people or co-counters to take over these counts. have teamed up and we plan to work on these particular issues during 2007/2008. Lastly, over the past 14 years, many people have participated in the CWAC project. We have a As many of you might know, the Birds in total of 278 observers that have participated, Reserves Project (BIRP) had a new website with a further 1 678 volunteers. That amounts to launched a few months ago. This website a total of 1 956 people! We at the ADU provides functionality to participants, and more appreciate the efforts of every single one of you! importantly allows access to valuable BIRP and SABAP data. Over the next few months we plan to develop that website into an important “bird” portal, by adding other ADU projects to it, including the CWAC project. We aim to provide CWAC participants with basic functionality on the site. This may include CWAC – What are we planning for 2007/2008 information such as observer summaries, census Recently, the ADU has teamed up with the South forms, information sheets, as well as the ability African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). to submit data electronically. The website would Our aim is to expand and promote various bird also host basic site and species summaries. monitoring projects, including the Coordinated Waterbird Counts Project. CWAC is one of only We are not yet sure to what degree of detail we a few long-term datasets that contains immensely would make information available on the website valuable information on South African birds, in as this is still very much in the planning phase. this case, waterbirds. As indicated however, the aim is to host some information that would benefit the conservation The conservation of waterbirds and their of these sites, and ultimately the waterbirds associated habitats are constantly being associated with them. If there is anybody that threatened worldwide and in particular a country has suggestions or concerns on these issues, such as South Africa, where human needs far please feel free to discuss them with me. The exceed the needs of conservation. Furthermore, ADU would be glad to have your inputs on these climate change is already having an impact on developments. 2 Collection of additional site information BirdLife Vaaldam is once again hosting this event on the weekend of the 20 & 21st of January It is becoming increasingly important to collect 2007. Our sincere gratitude to SASOL for their additional information pertaining to the wetlands continued support in making this count possible. that are surveyed as part of the CWAC programme. This information could be useful for various reasons. Examples may include the better understanding of past, present and future threats to a wetland, the highlighting of these During the January survey last year a huge problems to conservation authorities, knowing number of birds were counted at the Vaaldam. the type of wetland, and whether a wetland is In fact, the total of 97 363 birds counted during protected or not - and to what degree. that survey has been the highest number of birds Information such as this will help anybody counted at any wetland on record within the studying these systems, including the waterbirds CWAC database. Of interest however, the bulk associated with these, to have a better understand of this figure was made up of Black-winged of how these systems function within the bigger Pratincoles. An astonishing 76 500 of them! ecological picture. Not much is known about the demography of Furthermore, basic wetland information can also this species primarily because they are highly assist other wetland monitoring projects such as nomadic birds. Their movements are erratic and the River Health Programme and the South during the northern hemispheres winter, they African National Wetland Inventory Programme, move down into southern Africa. They may be including various others, to reach their goals. It scattered anywhere where conditions are is crucial that our conservation efforts are shared favourable for them. During our summer they amongst different stakeholders – ultimately can generally be found around the Okavango trying to achieve the same goal of conserving delta system, but sometimes they come down as these natural wonders. far south as the grasslands of Gauteng, Free State and Mpumalanga. Seen in this light, the CWAC programme aims to start collecting additional site information in the Population estimates vary dramatically with the near future. The process would basically entail latest figures according to Wetlands International filling in a site description form for each wetland 2006 estimated between 29 000 and 45 000 birds and returning it to the ADU. We will then in total; with numbers declining steeply. As the capture this information into the main CWAC above figures show, there is dispute as to how database. The possibility also exists that we may many birds actually exist. European estimates be able to capture this kind of information via are mainly based on birds counted during their the newly proposed website. This would breeding season and are usually much lower than certainly be of benefit.
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