Other Species Research

Lions, elephants and rhinos may be some of the most famous faces of African wildlife, but Africa’s smallest creatures need protection too. Every living thing in Africa is part of the circle of life. Loss of even the smallest species can have an irreversible impact on the African ecosystem.

AWF doesn’t limit its species conservation work to the largest or most glamorous animals. Fish, birds and other wildlife are the subject of conservation efforts too. Protecting the wattled crane and the fish of the Zambezi River are two of AWF’s current initiatives to preserve lesser-known wildlife.

Humans are the greatest threat to many animals in Africa – not least of all birds and fish. As human populations expand, animals lose their habitat to settlements and agriculture. Human wars destroy animals and the lands they live in. Humans take birds and fish for food and for sport.

The only way to conserve Africa’s wildlife – big or small – is to help humans find economic and social alternatives to habitat and wildlife destruction. AWF is working with local communities in the African Heartlands to study the impacts of human activities on key species and find ways to conserve these wildlife and their habitats.

Banhine National Park, in AWF’s Limpopo Heartland, is home to a relic population of no fewer than ten pairs of wattled cranes. This population may form an important “missing link” between South Africa’s isolated population of wattled cranes and populations in other parts of the continent. AWF is working to identify

• Key habitats currently being used by cranes for nesting and foraging in the park,
• Suitable habitat,
• Human threats that constrain the expansion of the crane population and
• Factors that influence fluctuations and distribution of crane populations.

This project will contribute to the revival of wildlife in Mozambique’s inland wetlands and will become the basis for sustainable ecotourism.

For the people that live along the Zambezi River, fish have always been a diet staple. Today, population growth and poor agricultural conditions have brought even more people to the Zambezi for their livelihoods. The result: fish stocks are rapidly declining.

As the need to catch more fish for more people grows, fishermen are turning to inappropriate fishing gear such as small meshed nets that catch juvenile fishes before they get a chance to reach sexual maturity and regenerate. Others have started to use explosives and poisons that are destructive and unselective in their impact.

AWF sees the problem of unsustainable fishery practices as one of its priority areas for intervention in the Zambezi Heartland. To better understand the fishery dynamics, AWF and its partners have conducted three aquatic biodiversity surveys along the Upper and Middle Zambezi. Using data collected, AWF is working to determine the impact of uncontrolled fishing on threatened fish species. AWF’s goal with this research is to contribute to the establishment of sound co-management practices for conservation and sustainable use of fisheries resources in the Zambezi.