EWT: African Crane Conservation Programme Sightings

Study Extent

The study covers five countries in Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia). South Africa is the best-represented country in terms of data, this is due to the fact that the EWT’s ACCP has been a full time conservation programme in South Africa since 1994. The fewest sightings were recorded in Uganda. However, short term projects in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda have been funded over the last 20 years, and as a result, crane records have increased.

Sampling

All sightings have been recorded on an ad hoc basis across the regions and projects. However, they were collected from areas where crane studies or conservation projects were being undertaken at the time. All reported sightings, with sufficient information to be meaningful, were captured opportunistically. Generally sightings of cranes within this dataset are from roadside collections. For this reason the dataset has a correction field to correct for distance and direction from the location of the recorder. The sampling was often concentrated around the location where EWT field staff was based within project areas, but this also corresponds with the core regions for cranes.

Quality Control

The dataset has gone through a cleaning and georeferencing process to ensure GPS points and location information is accurate (10 % of the data were removed through this process due to inaccurate GPS coordinates; missing locality information or if it generally lacked the information for the observation to be meaningful). Taxonomic and vernacular names were checked for consistency in naming and any errors were corrected. Terms in the dataset are in accordance with those set by the Darwin Core (DwC) Standard (Darwin Core Task Group, 2009).

Method steps

1. Observations of crane species were incorporated into the dataset by the EWT employees, which included sightings that were reported by the general public as well as by EWT staff or partner organizations. Data were only included in the dataset if there was sufficient information (e.g. GPS coordinates, individual specifics, number of individuals seen etc.). Details of the sightings were recorded, which included: age class (adult, juvenile, or chick), number of individuals, their activity (breeding, feeding, flying, roosting) and group type (single, pair, single/mixed species flock or family). All coordinates were converted to decimal degrees, datum WGS84, if not provided by the reporter in decimal degrees. Other location details were also recorded (country, province/district, and specific locality).

African cranes, family Gruidae

1. Anthropoides paradiseus
   common name: Blue Crane rank: species
2. Balearica regulorum
   common name: Grey Crowned Crane rank: species
3. Bugeranus carunculatus
   common name: Wattled Crane rank: species

Dataset covers 5 countries: South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia