Department of Statistical Sciences
University of Cape Town
| Avian Demography Unit
Department of Statistical Sciences University of Cape Town |
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Projects of the Avian Demography UnitSABAP - Southern African Bird Atlas Project
The compilation of checklists is a perennially popular activity among birders; the scientific value of doing this was clearly demonstrated by SABAP. SABAP is being followed up with a similar project which will produce a database complementary to that of the atlas. The Birds in Reserves Project (BIRP), launched in December 1994, uses essentially the same project design as SABAP but the geographical sampling units are protected areas rather than quarter-degree grid cells. In 2001, BIRP is growing from strength to strength, and is steadily reaching its goal of providing bird lists for the protected areas of South Africa. The expertise and software systems developed for the processing of SABAP data remain available within the ADU and have been adapted for BIRP, for the Mozambique Bird Atlas Project and for the Southern African Frog Atlas Project. The bird atlas in Mozambique is being done under the auspices of the Endangered Wildlife Trust; although not an ADU project, it is closely affiliated to the ADU through Vincent Parker, an MSc graudate from the unit and a prime contributor to SABAP, who initiated the Mozambique Bird Atlas Project. The ADU is providing the data-processing facilities for this project which is in the second of its planned three phases. The Southern African Frog Atlas Project has also been piggy-backed onto the SABAP technology. Quite extensive adjustments to the bird atlasing concepts were needed for the frog atlas, but these were successfully made, and this project is also well on the road to a succesful completion. All the advantages of an "up-and-running" system can be made available to any other comparable project which aims to map the distributions of, for example, bats, butterflies, trees, etc. The software is flexible enough to be adapted for use with a variety of taxa, at different geographical scales and in different parts of the world. List of papers and theses that have made extensive use of SABAP data |
