From: Munir Virani <munir.virani@bigfoot.com>

Date: 2008-11-20 07:27

Subject: Africa-wide Raptor Road Counts

For those who have been following the discussions on the African Raptor Network, I thought I would provide a brief update for the ones who haven't!

Basically because raptor populations appear to be declining in many parts of Africa, particularly groups such as vultures, African Marsh Harriers etc, there is an idea to conduct a simultaneous road survey over a week period (or say 5 days) encompassing about 250 - 300 km daily. The idea being that if each country provides five vehicles and covers upto 1500 km in their respective country, we could be collecting data on raptors per 100 km for upto 150,000 km (if 20 countries participate). It seems evident, that an undertaking of this scale would require tremendous levels of coordination as well as goodwill and dedication. It goes without saying that it would be an entirely voluntary effort. Birding groups, and Safari drivers would be ideal candidates to help collect data.

I would like to give this a "trial run" say during the first week of February and would be interested to know how many of you would like to volunteer. 

The routes would be (provisionally)

1) Nairobi to Malindi (via Mombasa and or Tsavo)

2) Nairobi to Mara (and back)

3) Nairobi to Samburu (and back)

4) Nairobi to Kisumu (via Eldoret) (or somewhere in that general western direction)

5) Nairobi to Magadi (Namanga, or Amboseli)

For those of you interested, please contact me directly on my email address.

Thanks,

Munir