Crested crane: Ugandic missing national bird

With its characteristic gold crown, red throat bag and slender black legs, the crested crane is loved in Uganda – located on the flag and coat of arms of the East African nation.

All national sports teams in the country are also nicknamed the iconic bird, but in recent years he has gone to decline, and conservators say this could face extinction if she is no longer done to protect herself.

The bird is protected by law – it prescribes a life sentence and/or a fine of 20 billion. Ugandan shillings ($ 5 million; £ 4 million) for those who are found to have killed.

Returning for centuries, the local cultural superstition of Buganda also protected the elegant bird, which was considered a symbol of wealth, happiness and longevity.

It was believed that if one killed a crane, his Kith and a relative would flee to the killer’s house, hold alert and grieve collectively by hitting until a person went crazy or even died.

“Such stories have implanted fear, and the cranes would be respected and appreciated and not killed,” said Jimmy Muheebwa, a senior conservator in Nature Uganda, a local non -governmental organization (NGO), he told the BBC.

But for farmers in Western Uganda, where the cranes are mostly hanging out, this fear has scattered and often seems to be only conservationists who know about the ban on murder.

“I really don’t see any value in these birds, because all they do is attack our plantations and eat our crops. We are worried about food safety in this area,” that Mucunguzi, a corn farmer from the village near the town of Mbarara in the Western region, said is for BBC.

Another farmer near Mbarare, Fausita Aritu, agreed, saying that when he went to her corn plot, he spent all day chasing cranes – and if he couldn’t get there, he tried to get someone else to be guarded.

“We no longer harvest as much as we used to work because these birds eat everything,” she told the BBC.

Also known as gray cranes, birds are predominantly located in Uganda, but they are also in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambik, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

They are migration, but make local and seasonal movements, depending on food resources, availability of nests and time.

Standing at about 1 m (3.2 ft) high, water birds mostly live in wetlands – the shores of the rivers, around the dams and open lawn – where they are grown and feed on grass seeds, small frogs, frogs, insects and other insects.

But with a growing human population, great demand for food pushes farmers to be grown in wetlands, leaving Crested cranes with reduced areas to call home.

“In East Africa, the population has declined terribly by over 80% in the last 25 years,” he told BBC Adalbert Ainoucunguza, who runs International Crane Foundation (ICF) in East Africa.

In the 1970s, Uganda boasted more than 100,000 cranes, but today that number has decreased to only 10,000, according to Nature Uganda.

This fall recorded an international Nature Conservation Association On its red list of threatened bird species in 2012.

“Despite its tranquility, beauty and popularity, the bird faces a serious threat. This means that if the emergency measures to reset this trend are not taken, we could see how the cranes are pushing for extinction,” Sseruga Dan said, the Ugandian ornithologist, said, said Bbc.

Around Mbarare, we discovered that it was difficult to find birds – and only saw them early in the morning just after dawn.

Conservators say they were much easier to find in the landscape around Mbarara.

Dozens of cranes have been found dead in recent years after being poisoned by rice and corn farmers in Lwengo County, in the southern central Uganda.

“One of the biggest threats of cranes is the poisoning of farmers. This is because birds do great damage to the crops,” Gilbert Tayebwa, an ICF preservation official, told the BBC, Gilbert Tayebwa.

Mr. Tayebwa said he hired farmers to use different methods of distractions such as scarecrows to protect their crops from attacks on cranes.

Farmers such as Philip Ntare, from Lweng, said that the cranes were sometimes wrongly poisoned after eating crops scattered agro-chemicals and other pesticides.

“I just chase them, because I grew up knowing that Crested Crane should not be killed. But the Government should consider the compensation of farmers to damage the crops,” he told the BBC.

However, John Makobo, the director of preservation at the Divine Animal Directorate (UWA), said it was not possible.

“It’s one of those precious species that have freedom to go anywhere and unfortunately, the Government is not responsible for any damage that the cranes have done,” he told the BBC.

Sarah Kugonza, Conservator ICF, said that the cranes are facing many other threats – not just from farmers. Without the protective blanket of wetlands, their chickens are more likely to be captured by eagles.

The cranes from day to day find them to live in an increasingly hostile environment.

“Sometimes there are flooded areas, and today some cranes are killing electricity lines when flying,” Mrs. Buggonza told the BBC.

Their exceptional beauty also put them in danger because people are increasingly catching them with pets, according to Mr. Ainucunguza.

But Crested Crane, who can live just over two decades, are barely ever grown in captivity because the birds are gloriously faithful.

“It’s a very monogamous bird because it is merged once, to live. It means that if one of them is killed or domesticated, the likelihood of finding a new mating partner is almost zero,” Mr. Muheebwa said.

They attract a partner dance, worship and jump – and are often seen walking like couples or families. The couple will define their own territory and can be very aggressive to defend it.

Scientifically called Balearica Regularorum GibbericepsThe cranes also have unique nesting patterns because they usually return to the same place a year, often laid down between two and five eggs that have incubated both sexes anywhere between 28 and 31 days.

Any destruction of these areas of nesting affects these cultivation patterns.

Their monogamy has also attracted undesirable attention from local traditional healers, who claim that parts of Crested Crane can bring fidelity from partners – or happiness.

“Some are caught hunting cranes to take some of their body parts to a witch doctor in the belief that they will be enriched. Or, if you are a woman, your husband will never leave you,” said Mr. Tayebwa of ICF.

This is also something that conservators are trying to counteract – as well as warning people to a law that protects the cranes.

And in an effort to reverse the decreasing numbers, the Uganda government and conservation groups are now gathering communities for the restoration of wetlands.

President of Yoweri Museveni, who comes from the western region, sought attackers to leave the areas of wetlands and, according to local media, declared in 2025 annual preservation of wetlands.

ICF also hired guardians for monitoring and ensuring the protection of the crane growers.

Mr. Muheebwa Nature Uganda said these efforts are slowly helping to stabilize the situation, but the crane numbers remain “very low”.

For Mr. Makobo, the future emphasis of UWA will be on the setting of examples when it comes to the law.

“We will arrest and prosecute those who poison the cranes,” he said.