Actie voor betere bescherming van Rode Ibissen en andere kustvogels in Suriname van start gegaan

The coast of Surinam, northeastern South America, harbours large numbers of water birds with, amongst others, tens of thousands of nesting ciconiiform birds and over a million of wintering North American waders. Almost all water bird species are fully protected under the Game Law, but protected species are nevertheless heavily hunted. In 2006, the Nature Conservation Division of the Suriname Forest Service and the local Foundation for Nature Conservation in Suriname (STINASU), with technical assistance from the Dutch foundation ‘Friends of STINASU’, have launched a conservation awareness campaign to tackle the problem. Thousands of stickers, flyers, and posters have already been distributed among hunters, fishermen, shops, bars, and police stations in the coastal area. With the help of local authorities, several informative meetings with hunters were organized and an inquiry was set up among hunters in order to quantify the numbers of protected birds being poached each year. In addition, an aerial survey of the entire coast was made for nesting ciconiiform birds. During this survey, 15 nesting colonies of herons, including 50,000- 100,000 breeding pairs, were located in the young black mangrove Avicennia germinans forests. In two colonies, both situated in a nature reserve, an estimated total of more than 5,000 Scarlet Ibis Eudcodimus ruber pairs were nesting. The inquiry revealed that poaching of protected water birds is still commonplace, with a wide variety of species being hunted (e.g. Scarlet Ibis and several species of herons and North American waders, but even species such as Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber are sometimes shot). Since not all questionnaires have been received back at the time of writing this article, it is not yet possible to present fairly accurate estimates of the numbers currently being poached. Unfortunately, poachers from neighbouring Guyana have recently introduced the use of wire to kill waders on the mudflats, an entirely illegal hunting method.