Introduction
The view from the north of Ile de N'Gor within the Cap Vert Important Bird Area, in the first in a series of articles on where to go and what to see at key bird sites in Senegal.
Objectives
This web site is the public face of an informal, non-commercial group, Senegal Wildlife. The group has objectives to promote the study and enjoyment of Senegal's wildlife through:
- A programme of field trips, indoor meetings and social events
- A quarterly bulletin and ad hoc reports
- A web-based gazette of sites of interest for wildlife
- Trip reports and other resources for naturalists
- A wildlife blog, with sightings, news and views on wildlife and conservation
- A reference collection of photographs of the birds of Senegal
- A forum for the exchange of identification questions and other information
All information will be available on the web site. The resources are at the moment biased to birds, which are what, as web site authors, we know best. However, we intend the group to develop other lines of interest, as expertise becomes available.
The web site and blog are a voluntary, non-profit effort and are not available to be used for self-promotion.
Living in Senegal?
The group is aimed at all levels of interest and expertise, for individuals or families. Have a look around the site as it develops and come to one of our monthly meetings. The first meeting will be in October.
Visiting Senegal?
The sections on resources and sites are designed to assist the independent traveler. This includes information on local eco-tourism initiatives where these exist. If you have questions that are not answered on the web site, please contact us. These sections of the web site are a "work in progress" with regular updates to which you could also contribute.
Franklin's gull (left) and Audouin's gull, both new species for Technopole, Dakar, July 2011, demonstrating the discoveries that can be made even at well known sites close to home (see the Blog).
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News
The inaugural meeting of the group, where we find out who we are, how many and where our interests lie, will take place in December. The date and venue shall be confirmed soon. Meanwhile, please take a moment to look at the questionnaire and email you interests so we can best organise the first months for everyone.
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Records numbers of great shearwaters off Dakar
Great shearwater over Dakar Canyon, June 2011
In June more than a hundred great shearwaters offshore, over the deep water Dakar Canyon, was a surprise. One or two records a year of the species in Senegal in October is more typical. The species usually migrates at this time of year north up the west Atlantic from its breeding grounds on Tristan da Cunha. The sighting coincided with the discovery by Clive Barlow of a "wreck" of corpses along the Gambian coast during the early rains, documented. Such strandings are not uncommon in the USA, where they are assumed to be starved birds, rather than fisheries by-catch. More will be published on this later. |
| Important Bird Areas (IBA) |
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SN017 Cap Vert IBA/ZICO
Important Bird Areas (IBA) is a global programme of Birdlife International to identify key sites for bird conservation. IBAs are also a good introduction to a country's birds and worthy of eco-tourism support, which can help their safeguard. A review of the IBAs for Africa, of which 17 of Africa's 1230 are in Senegal, is due in 2012. Throughout the world, volunteer effort is often important in providing good data for this process. We will be able to contribute through some of our field trips, which will also feed in to the web site guide to the country's wildlife sites. This information will be regularly updated. We start close to home, with the relatively well known Cap Vert IBA, though even here much remains to be discovered.
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Books for ecoguides
Ten free copies of the first edition of the definitive guide to "Birds of Africa south of the Sahara" have been donated by David Chamberllain (Executive Director, Chamberlain Trading) and one of the authors, Ian Sinclair. They will be given to ecoguides, who will be invited if they wish to contribute a short article to the blog.
Web authors
Paul Robinson is a wildlife biologist resident in Dakar. His main areas of interest are birds and applied statistics.
Flemming Quist is a Danish Police Officer and Senior Advisor at UNODC for West and Central Africa, residing in Dakar, and with a passion for birds and wildlife photography.
Céline Roux-Vollon is a wildlife biologist, working at OHM (Observatoire Homme-Milieux of CNRS) and resident in Dakar. Her main areas of interest are birds and botany. Her research interests include habitats and birds of the Senegalese Ferlo.
Problems viewing the site with Internet Explorer?
We had a problem reported in viewing this site with Internet Explorer on small screens (columns not in line), but not with Firefox or Google Chrome. Please let us know if you have any problems.
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More resources
Coinciding with the site web launch we have put on the web a collection of our photos of birds taken in Senegal. A target for the end of 2012 is to have images, taken in Senegal, of all regularly occurring species, with notes to help identification. Get in touch if you are willing to share your pictures.
The blog has regular updates on wildlife sightings in Senegal and zoology and conservation news relevant to the country. We will feature guest bloggers, both professional and amateur, who have a particular sighting, story or point of view to impart. Significant stories will also appear here on our web site front page news.
Starting next week!
What species was that? Digital photography makes the sharing of knowledge on identification easier. The moderated group can also be used to put questions and exchange information on Senegal bird ecology, where to visit and to report on recent sightings. We are looking for people willing to help with the identification of fauna other than birds.
Visit this page for an annotated guide to useful published literature and accessible web information, currently for birds.
More news
| Review of Threatened birds 2011 |
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List is the globally accepted list of categories of threat to species, based on rarity, population range and population trends. For birds, where data is quite good, it is reviewed annually. As IBAs set the priorities for much site-based conservation effort, so the Red List sets priorities for action to conserve species.
Senegal has 25 bird species in the categories between Near Threatened and Endangered, of which twelve are reasonably numerous breeders and six similarly numerous non-breeders, to the extent that the fate of Senegal's populations can make some difference to the global population. There are two main changes relevant to Senegal for the 2011 revision. Lesser Kestrel, for which Kousmar, near Kaolak, famously has a huge wintering roost, is considered no longer threatened, due to new knowledge of the size of the breeding population and what may have been over-pessimistic assessment of declines from roost counts in South Africa. Birds may just have gone elsewhere, demonstrating the special difficulty of monitoring wide ranging species.
Hooded vulture, snacking outside an abattoir at Touba, 2011
A new arrival on the list is hooded vulture, the familiar vulture of Dakar, now classified as Endangered, the highest threat category of any regularly occurring species in Senegal. The justification is the size of the decline rather than rarity. Is it real? The best opinion here considers yes, although there is unfortunately no supporting data. It remains a very common species in central Dakar, with abundant nests for example in the zoological park at Hann. Its new status will likely encourage research into the causes of the decline.
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