how are raptors doing in Africa? - your knowlege is sought

We are in the process of undertaking an assessment of the Status of Raptors and owls in Africa, with the hope of coming up with a draft Raptor Red Data List for Africa. The draft will be presented during a raptor symposium during 12^th Pan African Ornithological Congress so as to receive further comments and before finalisation and wider use in guiding raptor conservation in Africa. Given the still lack of knowledge of the status of many resident species in the Afro-tropical realm, the development of this Red Data list is high priority.

We are therefore seeking opinion from people who may have knowledge on particular species of raptors and owls in Africa, at national, sub regional, or regional (Africa-wide) level so that we can be well informed in undertaking this exercise.

For each of the species that you feel comfortable commenting on, indicate the following:

2. Country or Sub-region (East-/South-/Central-/West-/North-Africa/Islands) or country covered by your assessment

3. Population trend (e.g. is it increasing fast, increasing, stable, decreasing or decreasing fast?) and size (if known).

4. List Known threats. For each threat indicate severity (e.g. very high, high, moderate, low or very low)

5. List ongoing or planned conservation actions if any.

6. Provide any other general comments, e.g. recommendations for actions etc.

NB: If you intend to provide information for many species in a sub-region, we could provide you (on request) with a template excel sheet that you can use.

Send the information to Geoffrey Mwangi at mwajeffa@yahoo.com or Kariuki Ndanganga at paul.ndanganga@birdlife.or.ke . However, please ignore this request if you have already been contacted in person regarding this.

Once more, we highly regard your contribution to this exercise and greatly appreciate the effort it will take you to provide us this information. We hope that, together, we can come up with a up-to-date, accurate, relevant and practical blueprint that will guide raptor research and conservation across our region. Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions, comments or additions to this work.

This initiative is being coordinated collaboratively by BirdLife Africa Partnership Secretariat (Contact: Paul Kariuki Ndanganga), Peregrine Fund (contact: Munir Virani) and Geoffrey Mwangi & Mwangi Githiru of National Museums of Kenya. It has received financial support from the Raptor Research Foundation, Inc. (RRF) Leslie Brown Memorial Fund.