The Critically Endangered R & uuml;ppell's Vulture Gyps rueppelli is a resident species in Uganda, with only one known breeding site in Luku Central Forest Reserve, Arua district. The natural resources in this protected forest reserve are under severe threat due to a growing refugee population. Our short-term study documented vulture population size and breeding success at a small colony inside the reserve, and we identified specific threats to vultures and the surrounding habitat. We utilised direct observation and drone photography. The number of R & uuml;ppell's Vultures ranged from 18 to 24 individuals. Of the 14 nests located on the cliff face, eight (57%) were successful. Many threats were identified including disturbance to nests from synanthropic species, hunting vultures for belief-based uses, poison use by farmers targeting pest species such as primates and crows, and habitat destruction within the forest reserve. We recommend that the National Forest Authority collaborates closely with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, NGOs and international partners such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to urgently engage neighbouring communities to heighten the protection of this site. Le Vautour de R & uuml;ppell Gyps rueppelli, esp & egrave;ce en danger critique d'extinction, est une esp & egrave;ce r & eacute;sidente en Ouganda, avec un seul site de reproduction connu dans le pays, dans la r & eacute;serve foresti & egrave;re centrale de Luku, district d'Arua. Les ressources naturelles de cette r & eacute;serve foresti & egrave;re prot & eacute;g & eacute;e sont menac & eacute;es par l'augmentation r & eacute;cente de la population de r & eacute;fugi & eacute;s. Notre & eacute;tude & agrave; court terme a permis de documenter la taille de la population de vautours, le succ & egrave;s de reproduction dans une colonie & agrave; l'int & eacute;rieur de la r & eacute;serve, et d'identifier les menaces sp & eacute;cifiques qui p & egrave;sent sur les vautours et l'habitat environnant. Nous avons utilis & eacute; l'observation directe et la photographie par drone. Le nombre de Vautours de R & uuml;ppell a vari & eacute; entre 18 et 24 individus. Sur les 14 nids situ & eacute;s sur la falaise, huit (57%) ont r & eacute;ussi. Un grand nombre de menaces ont & eacute;t & eacute; identifi & eacute;es, notamment la perturbation des nids par des esp & egrave;ces synanthropiques, la chasse aux vautours pour des raisons de croyances, l'utilisation de poisons par les agriculteurs ciblant des esp & egrave;ces nuisibles telles que les primates et les corbeaux, et la destruction de l'habitat au sein de la r & eacute;serve foresti & egrave;re. Nous recommandons que la National Forest Authority collabore & eacute;troitement avec l'Uganda Wildlife Authority, les ONG et les partenaires internationaux, tel que le Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les R & eacute;fugi & eacute;s, afin d'engager d'urgence les communaut & eacute;s voisines de fa & ccedil;on & agrave; renforcer la protection de ce site.

Over a period of 2 years, we noted that many large mammals in the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, remained fairly close to the road-rather than running away-as we drove past at a relatively slow speed, of about 20-25 kph. We consider that over recent years, many of these animals have become habituated to tourist vehicles passing nearby and we recorded the minimum distances at which nine common species remained at, or close to the road edge as we drove past. Many stayed still actually at the edge, while Oribis and Hartebbest sometimes remained on the road itself. Sur une periode de 2 ans, nous avons remarque que de nombreux grands mammiferes dans le parc national de Murchison Falls, en Ouganda, restaient assez pres de la route - au lieu de s'enfuir - lorsque nous passions a une vitesse relativement faible, d'environ 20-25 km/h. Nous considerons qu'au cours des dernieres annees, beaucoup de ces animaux se sont habitues au passage des vehicules touristiques a proximite et nous avons enregistre les distances minimales auxquelles neuf especes communes sont restees sur le bord de la route ou a proximite de celui-ci lors de notre passage. Beaucoup sont restes sur le bord, tandis que les Ourebis et les Bubales sont parfois restes sur la route meme.

The delta of the Nile as it enters Lake Albert is part of a Ramsar site and supports 35 km2 of papyrus swamp through which run channels of the river. For 12 months in 2017-2018, we made monthly bird counts, each of ten minutes, at 20 points along swamp edges. Overall, 143 species were recorded, of which 13 were particularly common in the papyrus, and a similar number along the channels. Of seven papyrus-restricted species observed, three are globally red-listed notably papyrus gonolek and shoebill. Most species are resident, but white-winged terns and several hirundine species were seasonally common. Our baseline counts should be repeated in future years as well as recording potential threats—climate change, oil and gas operations and other human activities. Most, but not all, of the Ramsar site is within Murchison Falls National Park, which is well-protected; if possible, the protection should be extended to the whole site.

Uganda is one of the most species rich countries in Africa because of the presence of several major biomes. However, it is also a country that has lost much of its natural habitat to agriculture. Uganda is a country that has been better surveyed for its biodiversity than many African countries, but despite this, there has not been a comprehensive analysis of the critical sites that contribute to biodiversity conservation at a global, as well as at a national level. We here present such an assessment using mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and plants as surrogate taxa. We identified 36 terrestrial sites that are of sufficient global importance to qualify as Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), using the Global Standard for the Identification of KBAs, which complement an additional nine freshwater sites. National red listing of species and ecosystems was used to identify sites of national importance for conservation. We employ a conservation planning approach using Marxan to identify the minimum set of sites needed to conserve all the globally and nationally threatened species and nationally threatened habitats in Uganda. The findings show that most of the remaining natural habitat in Uganda is important for the conservation of globally and nationally threatened species and threatened habitat. Large areas of irreplaceable habitat occur outside protected areas, although more extensive surveys of these areas would likely reduce the area that is irreplaceable.

This paper seeks to demonstrate the usefulness of the data held at the National Biodiversity Data Bank (NBDB) situated at Makerere University Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (MUIENR). We assess its value as a potential planning tool, based on the growing evidence that Uganda aspires to a robust Protected Area system that encompasses protection of biodiversity at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels. Analyses are presented of the coverage of 21 major vegetation types, and of species of birds and mammals. Several important vegetation types are inadequately conserved, whilst coverage of some categories of birds is also incomplete. The situation seems to be worse for mammals, although this is harder to assess because the distributions of many species are poorly known. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the term 'Protected Area' (PA) has come to embrace a wide variety of land use types, from those which are strict Nature Reserves, to others intended to meet broader needs, including those of local communities (McNeely, 1994). Countries such as Uganda, which have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, are required to develop national conservation strategies. Inevitably, PAs will have a key role in this effort. In Uganda, the major PAs are National Parks, Wildlife Reserves and Forest Reserves (figure 1). The first two are administered by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), the last by the Forestry Department (FD). Two other categories, in practice largely notional, are Controlled Hunting Areas, and Wildlife Sanctuaries, also managed by the UWA (table 1). During the 1990s, both the FD and the UWA have undertaken detailed reviews of their estates. The FD collected extensive new data (FNCMP, 1999), whereas the UWA relied mainly upon existing data, including a draft of this article (Lamprey et al., 1998). Biodiversity data for the UWA estate remain very incomplete. IPresent address: Broads Authority, 18 Colegate, Norwich, England. Downloaded From: https://bioone.org/journals/Journal-of-East-African-Natural-History on 14 Aug 2019 Terms of Use: https://bioone.org/terms-of-use 42 D. Pomeroy, H. Tushabe & M. Green In developing a robust PA system, research (including the sorts of analyses discussed here) has a major part to play. Earlier work on Uganda's PAs had already demonstrated, for II National Park.

Projected increases in Africa's human population over the next 40 years point to further, large-scale conversion of natural habitats into farmland, with far-reaching consequences for raptor species. some of which are now largely restricted to protected areas (PAs). To assess the importance of PAs for raptors in Uganda, we conducted an annual road survey through savanna, pastoral and agricultural land during 2008-2015. Here, we present density estimates for 34 diurnal raptor species, 17 of which were encountered largely or entirely within PAs. These included seven out of eight globally threatened or near-threatened species surveyed. Based mainly on published demographic values, we converted density estimates (birds 100 km(-2)) to numbers of adult pairs. for 10 resident, savanna-dependent species. We then estimated adult population sizes within conservation areas (individual PAs and clusters of contiguous PAs), based on the area of savanna in each site. This suggested that two threatened residents. Martial Eagle Polemaetus bellicosus and Lappet-faced Vulture Torgos tracheliotos, have national breeding populations of just 53-75 and 74-105 pairs, respectively. A third species, White-headed Vulture Trigonoceps occipitalis, may have a breeding population of just 22-32 pairs. In each case, at least 90% of pairs are thought to reside within Uganda's five largest conservation areas. In three cases our estimates of pair density were markedly lower than in other studies, while in six cases they were broadly consistent with published findings, often derived using more intensive survey methods. Further work is required to determine the accuracy of our estimates for individual conservation areas, and to assess the long-term viability of Uganda's threatened raptor populations.

Globally, conversion of natural habitats to farmland poses the greatest extinction risk to birds, its consequences being especially pervasive in the case of large predators and scavengers, whose declines may trigger extensive cascading effects. Human population growth in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to drive a vast expansion in agricultural land by 2050, largely at the expense of pastoral land and savanna. The greatest expanse of suitable land yet to be converted to agriculture lies in East and Central Africa, including South Sudan, DRC and Tanzania. To gauge the effects of land conversion on raptor populations in this region we used road survey data from neighbouring Uganda, from which we determined linear encounter rates (birds seen 100 km(-1); n = 33 species), and species richness (from 53 species). Encounter rates were much lower in pastoral land than in protected savanna (median difference: -41%; 23 species), and lower still in agricultural land ( - 90%; 24 species). These disparities were influenced by diet and body mass. For large eagles and vultures, encounter rates in agricultural land were 97% lower than in protected savanna (median of 12 species), whereas for smaller raptors they were 30% lower (12 species). Large, apex consumers were thus more vulnerable to farmland expansion, and this was reflected in the mean body mass of species encountered in savanna (1740 g), pastoral (995 g) and agricultural land (856g). Body mass differences remained significant when vultures were excluded. Since threat status is linked to body mass, encounter rates for globally threatened and near-threatened species likewise showed a more pronounced deficit in farmland than those of least concern. Accordingly, pastoral and agricultural transects were less species-rich (10.6 and 6.7 raptor species 100 km(-1), respectively) than savanna transects (13.2 species). Our findings suggest that the expansion of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa will reduce raptor populations in pastoral land and savanna by c. 50% and 90%, respectively. We propose that conservation efforts focus on identifying the causes of raptor population deficits in farmland, and on safeguarding tracts of unprotected, intact savanna, together with existing protected areas.

Long-term studies of urban birds are relatively scarce, especially in Africa. We analysed trends in species richness and bird species occurrence over a 32-year period in Kampala, Uganda, in order to assess changes in the bird community in a period that has shown rapid expansion of the city's human population. Given that species may respond to urbanisation according to their diet, we also analysed bird community trends of species groups defined according to predominant diet. There was an overall decline in species richness that was largely driven by declines in insectivores and granivores. General declines were evident also when the trends in the most common individual species in these two groups were considered. The occurrence of the commonest predator and scavenger species tended to increase over the period considered. Insectivorous species are likely to be especially affected by increasing urbanisation due to air pollution. Predators and scavengers are likely to have benefitted from the inability of municipal waste management to keep pace with growth in the human population, hence providing more potential food resources. Both insectivores and predators/scavengers are therefore good candidates for the development of urban indicators.

As more and more species become threatened, the need to assess population sizes accurately in order to facilitate effective management actions increases. There is an extensive literature on counting birds, but no consensus on the most appropriate units in which to record the results. To stimulate discussion on the use of "number of pairs" for estimating bird population size we review some of the main problems and difficulties. Some counts, especially of seabirds, give total numbers, whereas breeding season counts of songbirds often record territories or, less frequently, numbers of nests. The use of different units complicates comparisons, for example between non-breeding and breeding populations. In many populations there are non-breeding individuals (including immatures, helpers or those who have failed to secure a mate or a territory) that may be hard to distinguish from those that are breeding. Some of the last may even be more conspicuous than paired birds. The proportion of such, for most species, is unknown. In some species, males may attract more than one female. But detailed knowledge of demography is lacking for many species, especially in the tropics. Nest counts can also present problems as some species may make more than one nest. On the other hand, all individuals alive in the breeding season may potentially contribute to future generations and thus, for most purposes, it is preferable to record the number of all individual birds. Wherever known, estimation of the proportion of birds breeding could be added, and we suggest that a global database of such information would be valuable.

Cattle Egrets Bubulcus ibis, long known for their expanding geographical range, have in recent years also become increasingly urbanized in Kampala, a city with over 1.5 million people, and elsewhere. First recorded roosting in Kampala over 15 years ago, their numbers now exceed 16 000, spread across several sites, at most of which they have also been breeding for several years. However, the numbers nesting are far lower than might be expected from those that come nightly to roost. Breeding in Kampala shows bimodal peaks, perhaps because some birds breed twice a year—which would partly explain their rapid increase in numbers. Timing of breeding is linked to rainfall, but shows more variation between sites and between years than might be expected. Some birds may always have fed in the area that is now Kampala. Today, some feed at the city’s main land-fill site, but most go to the countryside where their consumption of bush-crickets, grasshoppers and other insects is presumably beneficial to farmers. Overall, for breeding and roosting, and to some extent feeding, Cattle Egrets can now be considered as urbanized in this near-equatorial city.