Its compilation commenced with a workshop in October 2012 in Entebbe, Uganda, hosted by the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities of Uganda, which was attended by government representatives and species experts from the key Range States of the Shoebill. Research to fill the key knowledge gaps is also planned.ĭevelopment of this plan was commissioned by the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat to Nature Uganda (BirdLife in Uganda) and financially supported by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). Furthermore, significant knowledge gaps remain about the Shoebill, including current information on numbers and trends at different sites, movements, breeding and foraging requirements, causes and extent of trade.Īmong the actions proposed in the plan include: maintaining trade bans, strengthening surveillance and raising awareness, especially with respect to fire restricting livestock from core breeding areas conducting proper EIA for oil and other developments developing management plans for Shoebill areas and promoting sustainable wetland-based community enterprises that make communities benefit from Shoebills and their habitats, notably ecotourism initiatives. Shoebills are also threatened by illegal live bird trade, with high mortality during capture, transit and captivity. Oil exploration in the Sudd (South Sudan) and agricultural developments in Gambella (Ethiopia) also have huge impacts on the species’ habitat. Its breeding success is largely impacted by anthropogenic (human impact on the environment) factors such as disturbance by livestock and people, destruction of nests and breeding areas by fire, and habitat conversion and degradation.

It is resident in South Sudan, western Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, western Tanzania and northern Zambia, with records also from Central African Republic, Burundi and Kenya.

The Shoebill occurs from South Sudan and Ethiopia in the north to northern Zambia in the south. As the Shoebill has clearly been in decline in several areas, it is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List. It has a fragmented distribution bound to this habitat and a low population, estimated at 5,000 – 8,000 birds. It prefers large freshwater swamps of grasses, reeds and papyrus, and thus has been fondly referred to some as “king of the marshes”. I'm not sure if big storks will ever thrill us the way dinosaurs do, but I imagine Steven Spielberg working on it right now, conjuring hungry-eyed storks, creeping through the underbrush, nearer and nearer to the darling baby hobbit cooing by the fire, their giant beaks dripping with fake blood.The Shoebill is a large unique waterbird confined to a rather restricted set of generally extensive freshwater swamps of eastern central tropical Africa. The Shoebill stork is a rare and critically endangered bird (whose population is documented to be less than 5000 in the wild). 'Prehistory is one of the few places where we can find monsters and let our imaginations run wild.' That is why, Switek thinks, we need to go back in time to find new ones. We keep a few of them in zoos and aquariums, where they are no longer threatening. The ones we still have, the wild gorillas, the killer sharks, are disappearing.

We live in a world where there are no giant sloths, no saber tooth tigers, no terrifying dinosaurs, no monsters left. They keep us company.If we exterminate the last magnificently scary beasts on planet Earth, as we seem bent upon doing, then no matter where we go for the rest of our history as a species - for the rest of time - we may never encounter any others.' They thrill us horribly.They allow us to recollect our limitations. As David Quammen concluded in Monster of God, 'Such creatures enliven our fondest nightmares. The Flores stork was just the latest creature to be added to the menagerie of monstrous prehistoric creatures that enthrall us. Imagine yourself bumping into a wild, meat eating stork that is literally twice your size. Six feet tall, extra-heavy, long and sharp beaked, no longer able to fly, this animal prowled the forest looking for meat. Second, and just recently, in this same forest, scientists discovered the bones of a never-before-seen bird. These little people - dubbed 'hobbits' - lived on this island for at least 70,000 years. Nothing unusual here - except, very recently, modern scientists made two back-to-back discoveries about this place.įirst, it appears that the Neolithic people who lived on the Indonesian island of Flores were incredibly small, the adults three feet tall, their kids about the size of owls. Deep in its tropical forests we find a small group of early humans, tool-making, cave dwelling, social people who live on fruits, fish and occasionally meat. Go back 30,000 years and picture an island somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Human shoebill stork size