Status
The African Crake has a huge breeding range estimated at 15,700,000 km2 (4,500,000 mi2). Its population is unknown, but it is common in most of its range, and its numbers appear to be stable. It is therefore classed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Overgrazing, agriculture and the loss of wetland and moist grassland have reduced the availability of suitable habitat in many areas, such as some parts of the southern KwaZulu-Natal coast which have been urbanised or planted with sugarcane. In other areas, grassland may have increased locally in recent years as woodland is cleared. This crake is considered to be good eating, and is killed for food in some regions. Despite these adverse factors, it appears to be under no real threat.
Although most rails in the Old World are covered by the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA), the African Crake is not listed even in Kenya, where it is considered "near-threatened". Like its relative, the Corn Crake, it is too terrestrial to be classed as a wetland species.
Read more about this topic: African Crake
Famous quotes containing the word status:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman’s aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)