The eagle killed by superstitions
Last Updated on Wednesday, 02 November 2011 11:07
Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 02 November 2011 10:54
”An eagle believed to be superstitious was yesterday (i.e. on 18.10.2011 hacked and burnt to ashes in Kawambwa (a town in Northern Zambia, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo) after it failed to fly for safety. In what is believed to be a bizarre incident, a group of people of Mutoba village located 25 kilometers away from Kawambwa yesterday morning found what was believed to be a magic bird in the nearby bush.” (Godfrey Chikumbi, tumfweko.com).
Narrating the ordeal to tumfweko.com village headman Mutoba said the bird fell from a tree that was being cut. He said “when the bird fell down it lost strength and became so weak that it failed to make a flight as it was decorated with ornaments of different kind.” The headman said the “creature” had a metallic silver ring on each leg with inscriptions on them saying the right ring had letters ‘USA’ with the left having ‘1995” (note: in reality it had a coloured ring marked ‘SA’ and a metal ring marked H 001395). He said on its chest the bird had a small Television screen with a solar panel and battery connected to it. The traditional leader added that on the bird’s back was a small motor car attached to a motorbike. Headman Mutoba said when some people started beating the „creature” with sticks it showed no sign of losing its life until after 3 hours. He said the creature was later burnt to ashes after hours of watching it.
This odd “creature” was actually a juvenile Lesser Spotted Eagle named Lisa equipped with a satellite transmitter in Piemontul Fagaras on 8 July 2011 by a mixed SOR, Milvus and REPA Sibiu team for the LIFE project “Conservation of Aquila Pomarina in Romania”. During migration Lisa managed to pass the Sinai peninsula, the place where Adel – another eagle monitored by the project – had died the previous year. Finally Lisa reached Zambia where she found its end due to ignorance, beliefs, superstitions and irrational human fear.
Unfortunately in this case cultural aspects (beliefs of a local community) interfered negatively with nature conservation interests. Lisa was one of the juvenile eagles equipped with a satellite transmitter in Piemontul Fagaras after of the project team’s long efforts to identifythe nesting area. Due to Lisa’s death we will no longer get the data transmitted by the satellite transmitter mounted on its back which we were looking forward to for our project’s study. Its transmitter cannot be recovered because it was burnt with the bird and the remains are used by the respective tribe in black magic rituals since they are believed to be coming from a magical bird (http://tumfweko.com/2011/10/22/mutoba-villagers-hide-magical-birds-gadgets/). Indeed, Lisa was a special bird as each and every individual of this declining species is extremely valuable for its salvation from extinction.
This is a very sad piece of news four our project which we received from Mr. David Chisala Ngwenyama, a scientist at the”Zambia's Bangweulu Swamps” Reserve, to whom we would like to thank once again.
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