Judith Mirembe – May 2025

7:00 pm, Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Online via Zoom, Free and open to the public
Registration required. Click here to register for the Zoom webinar.

In the World of Shoebills: The king of the African wetlands

The Shoebill is one of the most charismatic species across the globe owing to its prehistoric look. It inhabits fresh water wetlands in afro-tropical Africa spanning from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zambia. The Shoebill feeds on fish, frogs, water snakes, young crocodiles and many other aquatic prey. Globally, the Shoebill is Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Data List and endangered on the national list for Uganda due to threats majorly caused by human disturbance. In Uganda, the Shoebill is found in at least 12 of the 34 Important Bird Areas, and notable among these are the wetlands on the shores of Lake Victoria; Mabamba and Makanaga Wetlands. Other areas include the River Nile Delta in Murchison Falls National Park, Lake Albert and George wetlands, Katonga Wildlife Reserve, Lake Kyoga wetlands, Semliki Wildlife Reserve and others. Despite the Shoebill playing an important role in the wetland ecosystem and being a major source of livelihoods to the local communities through eco-tourism, there exists a number of knowledge gaps in areas of ecology; breeding, movements, habitat requirements, population trends and human shoebill interactions.  Judith will take you on a prehistoric journey of the Shoebill in Uganda!!!

Judith Mirembe is a bird guide and researcher with a passion for birds, keen on their conservation as well as protection of their habitats. This passion stems back from when she was a kid where she learnt birds in her local language and appreciated the cultural stories attached to them. She is the Pioneer Chairperson of the Uganda Women Birders’ Club, that started in 2013 as an initiative to introduce women to birdwatching, a profession that is dominated by men in Africa. This passion has led her into starting a non-profit organization, Shoebill-Watch Uganda (www.shoebillwatch.org) whose major aim is to protect the Shoebill and other bird species in Uganda.

She holds a Masters Degree in Environment and Natural Resources and has done a number of courses by the Tropical Biology Association (TBA) on application of Citizen Science in research and conservation of species. She has in the past (2016-2019) worked with Nature Uganda, a Birdlife International Partner in Uganda as the research and monitoring coordinator where her major role was to coordinate bird population monitoring in Uganda. Judith is a Zoological Society of London (ZSL) EDGE (Evolutionally Distinct and Globally Endangered) of Existence Fellowship Alumni (2017-2019) where she together with the local communities on the shores of Lake Victoria carried out research on the Shoebill, a globally threatened bird species. She has continued this amazing and ground breaking work with the local communities at Mabamba wetland where she has trained the local guides to use a mobile phone tool to monitor the Shoebill and the threats it is faced with as they go about their routine of guiding tourists. She is the editor for the Birdwatch, a newsletter talking about Uganda’s birdwatching sector (Birdwatch_Newsletter.pdf (shoebillwatch.org).