||Southern Black Bustard
Eupodotis afra (Linnaeus, 1766)
||del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
||Afrotis afra (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) was previously placed in the genus Eupodotis.
Afrotis (Eupodotis) afra and E. afraoides (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) are retained as separate species contra Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993) who included afraoides as a subspecies of E. afra.
|Red List Category & Criteria:
||Butchart, S. & Symes, A.
||Shaw, J., Hofmeyr, S. & Young, D.
||Butchart, S., Ekstrom, J., Khwaja, N., Symes, A., Westrip, J.
This small bustard is listed as Vulnerable as it is suspected to be undergoing rapid population declines owing to the loss and fragmentation of its habitat to agricultural conversion.
|Previously published Red List assessments:|
- 2013 – Vulnerable (VU)
- 2012 – Least Concern (LC)
- 2009 – Least Concern (LC)
- 2008 – Least Concern (LC)
- 2004 – Least Concern (LC)
- 2000 – Lower Risk/least concern (LR/lc)
- 1994 – Lower Risk/least concern (LR/lc)
- 1988 – Lower Risk/least concern (LR/lc)
|Population:||The global population size has not been quantified, but the species has been described as "uncommon to common" (Hockey et al. 2005).|
Trend Justification: Comparison of data from the first and second Southern African Bird Atlas Projects (SABAP1, 1987–1992 and SABAP2, 2007–) indicates that the species declined in abundance in c.80% of its range between 1992 and 2010, and by over 30% during the study period, although the decline may have decelerated from 2008 onwards (Hofmeyr 2012). Occupancy modelling using the same data confirmed this, showing declines in abundance and range across most of its range. Comparison of results from an extensive terrestrial road census in the Karoo with those from a similar study in the 1980s also found a marked population decline (Shaw 2013, Shaw et al. 2015), and data from the Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcounts project also indicate declines between 1997 and 2010 in Overberg and Swartland (S. Hofmeyr and D. Young in litt. 2013). Subsequent analysis of the SABAP data to April 2013 indicates the situation may be more serious, with slight declines in the Eastern Cape population and declines in the Northern Cape and especially the Western Cape appearing to be more significant than previously suspected (S. Hofmeyr in litt. 2013). On-going population declines within the range 30-49% in 31 years (three generations) are suspected based on these analyses.
|Current Population Trend:||Decreasing|
|♦ Number of mature individuals:||Unknown||♦ Continuing decline of mature individuals:||Unknown|
|♦ Extreme fluctuations:||No||♦ Population severely fragmented:||No|
|♦ Continuing decline in subpopulations:||Unknown|
|♦ Extreme fluctuations in subpopulations:||No||♦ All individuals in one subpopulation:||No|