Crested cranes: Uganda disappears the national bird star-news.press/wp

With its characteristic gold crown, a red throat purse and slender black legs, a mature crane is loved in Uganda – are located on the flag and the throat of the eastern African nation.

All national sports teams in the country are also nicked after the iconic bird, but in recent years has gone to fall, and the conservators say that it can face extinction if it doesn’t work any longer.

The bird is protected by law – it provides for life sentence and / or fine of 20 billion Uganda Shillings ($ 5 million; £ 4m) for those found to kill them.

Married for ages, Local Buganda Cultural Skoria also protected the elegant cafe, which was seen as a symbol of wealth, good fortune and longevity.

It was believed that if someone was killed by a crane, her Kith and Kin would leave a flock of the Killing Chamber, holding the vigil and mourn the collective despair until the person was killed or even killed.

“Such stories are gravening fear, and cranes would be respected and killed and were not killed,” said Jimmy Muheebwa, senior conservation in Uganda, a local NGO), said for BBC.

But for farmers in Western Uganda, where cranes are mostly socialized, that fear scattered and are often only conservators who make up just a ban on killing.

“I really don’t see any value in those birds, because all they do are searching our plantations and eat our crops. We are worried about food safety in this area”, Tom mucunguzi, maize near the town of Mbarar in the western region, with the BBC .

Another farmer near Mbarare, Fausita Arinta, said when he goes to a corn plot, spends all day to persecute the cranes – and if he can’t arrive there, he tries to get someone else to stop someone else’s.

“We’re no longer a harvest as far as we used to do because these birds eat everything,” she said for the BBC.

Known as well as gray cranes, birds were mostly found in Uganda, but are also in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

They are a non-migrator, but form local and seasonal movements depending on food, availability of nests and weather conditions.

Standing on about 1m (3,2f) High, water plate largely lives in wetlands – rivers, around the dam and open lawns – where they are grown and feed on grass seeds, small fingers, frogs, insects and other invertebrates.

But with an increasing human population, high demand for food pushes farmers to grow in wetlands, leaving mature cranes with reducing the area for the title of home.

“In East Africa, the population has fallen terribly in over 80% in the last 25 years,” said Adalbert Ainomucunguz, who runs the International Crane Foundation (ICF) in East Africa, said for the BBC.

U1970s, Uganda praised to the population more than 100,000 mature cranes, but today that number has decreased to only 10,000, towards natural Uganda.

This decline saw the International Union to Preserve Nature (IUCN) On his red list of endangered bird species in 2012.

“Despite his serenity beauty and popularity, he is facing a serious threat. If no urgent measures are taken for the reversal of this trend, we could see that the cranes were pushed in extinction,” said the Sseruge day, the Ugandan ornithologist, said BBC .

Around Mbarare, we found that there was a hard bird bird – and just saw them early in the morning immediately after dawn.

Conservators say they used to be much easier to find in the landscape environment of mbarare.

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

“One of the biggest threats of cranes is poisoning by farmers. This is because birds cause a lot of crop damage,” said Gilbert Tayebwa, the Conservation Officer in the ICF, said for the BBC.

Mr. Tayebwa said he hired farmers to use different deterrent methods like a strife to protect his crops from the attack.

Farmers like Filip Nntare, from Lwengo, said cranes were sometimes wrongly poisoned after the crops of sprayed agro-chemicals and other pesticides.

“Just persecute them, because I grew up knowing the crane shouldn’t be killed. But the government should consider the compensation of farmers from Rafa,” he said for the damage from Rafa.

However, John Makcombo, director of preservation in Uganda’s wildlife management (UWA), said that it was not possible.

“It’s one of those precious species that have the freedom to go anywhere and so unfortunately the government does not suit any damage to the end cranes,” he said for the BBC.

Sarah Kurgonza, ICF conservation, said that cranes also face the many other threats – not only from farmers. Without a protective coat of wetlands, their chickens are more likely to be captured by eagles.

The cranes are located from day to day living in an all enemy environment.

“Sometimes flooded surfaces are flooded and today some cranes are killing electricity when flying,” said Mrs. Kugonza.

Their extraordinary beauties also at risk put them because people are increasingly catching them to be pets, according to Mr. Ainomucungungu.

But mature cranes, who can live only for more than two decades, hardly have ever grown in captivity because they are birds of the famous faithful.

“It’s a high monogamous bird like a couple once, for life. That means that one of them is killed or domesticated, the likelihood of finding a new mating partner almost zero,” said Mr. Muheebwa.

They attract partners by dancing, worshiping and jumping – and often see each other as couples or families. The couple will define their own territory and can be very aggressive to defend it.

Scientifically called Balearine Rules GibbericepsCranes also have unique nesting samples, because they usually return to the same location a year, often placing between two and five eggs that incubate both sexes for anywhere between 28 and 31 days.

Each destruction of these areas of nesting affects these breeding forms.

Their monogamy also attracted the undesirable attention of local traditional healers, who claim that parts of a maturated crane can bring loyalty from partners – or happiness.

“Some people have Been Caught Hunting Cranes to take some of their body parts to Witch Door Get Rich. Or, if you are a woman, your husband will never leave you,” Mr Tayebwa from ICF said.

It is also something that conservatives try to oppose – as well as warning people on the protection protection.

And in an effort to reverse the declining numbers, governments and conservatistic groups of Ugandist are now gathered communities to restore wetlands.

President Yoweri Museveni, who comes from the Western region, calls for injuries to leave the swamp areas and, according to local media, declared 2025. Year of surgery of the wetland.

The ICF has also recruited the survey guardian and ensure that the breeding terrain cranes are protected.

The nature of Mr. Muheebwa said that these efforts are slowly assisted in stabilizing the situation, but the crane numbers remained “very low”.

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

“We’ll arrest and prosecute those who poop crane,” he said.