Do you know what South Africa's national bird is? It is the Blue Crane – Anthropoides paradisea. It is nearly endemic to South Africa with only a small population of between 60 -80 birds living in Etosha in Namibia. There are only between 20 and 25 thousand left in the wild.

The Blue Crane is unlike any of the other species of Crane having no red on its body and living in grasslands rather than wetlands, with a preference for higher altitude grasslands. There are three strongholds for the Blue Crane: the grasslands of KwaZulu-Natal, North-eastern Free State and South-eastern Mpumulanga; the central Karoo region in North and Eastern Cape, and the wheat-producing regions of the Western Cape.

At the end of February, the Endangered Wildlife Trust released a statement saying that 9 Blue Cranes had been confiscated in four separate instances after being removed from their natural habitat.

“Sadly, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg, with many more having been taken illegally,” says Kerryn Morrison, Manager of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s African Crane Conservation Programme (EWT-ACCP). “People often don’t realise that one needs a permit to trade in and own cranes. It is illegal to take cranes out of the wild.”

Often legally owned Blue Crane pairs are used as a front to move illegally captured chicks. A legal pair of Blue Cranes is kept, and crane chicks are then illegally removed from the wild and sold under the premise that the legal pair reproduced the chicks in question. With the lure of the supposed status acquired by keeping cranes in a private garden or shopping centre, a demand is created for cranes, which places pressure on the wild populations. Many unsuspecting people then become involved in illegal trade, as they find birds quite readily available.

Following a severe decline in the 1980s and 1990s, the species’ population size appears to have stabilised, probably mainly in response to the work undertaken by the EWT-ACCP and its partners, in particular the Overberg Crane Group, Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and the KwaZulu-Natal Crane Foundation. Over the last two decades these organisations have worked closely with landowners in the major crane regions, helping them to find viable solutions to the crop damage that cranes sometimes cause, without killing or disturbing the birds. Today farmers use agrochemicals more responsibly than they did in the past and are far more tolerant of cranes living on their properties.

The EWT-ACCP undertook a Blue Crane population modelling exercise in 2009. Analysis of the results suggests that the population remains on a knife edge and that an increase in mortality rates could once again swing the population into a steady decline.

The Endangered Wildlife Trust asks anyone looking to keep cranes to carefully consider their decision. One needs to ensure that they are legally acquired and that their purchase of cranes will not contribute to the demise of the Blue Crane population in the country. Ask the relevant questions around the origin of the cranes to be bought and ask for parentage testing to ensure that the birds you are buying are actually the chicks of the pair in question. It is also vital that the relevant provincial permits are obtained. There are hefty fines for the illegal trade of Blue Cranes with fines up to R5 million.