Police fail to trace suspected killers of crested cranes

Police in Masaka are yet to arrest key suspects in the killing of 11 crested cranes in Lwengo District eight months ago.

In July 2023, unknown people in two villages of Kikonge and Nabyewanga in Nkoni Sub-county in Lwengo killed 11 grey crowned cranes and left eight others injured.    

Preliminary police investigations revealed that the birds died after eating rice grains that were laced with poison.

Mr Peterson Mwanje, an environmentalist in Lwengo, wondered   why police had taken long to apprehend the  suspects.

“We expected police to arrest the suspects because we heard they had sighted the key suspect in the killing of the cranes in Entebbe, but since then, we have never got any update from police,” he said during an interview on Tuesday. He added: “We ask police to expedite the investigations and bring the suspects to book.” 

However, Mr Taban Chiriga, the Masaka Regional environmental police boss, said police are still trailing the key suspect who was recently sighted in Busoga.    

He said some measures have, however, been put in place to avert reoccurrence of the incident, including conducting operations to evict cultivators in wetlands.  

“We have always warned people against growing crops in wetlands, but they don’t take it serious, but we are going to intensify operations to fight encroachers on wetlands because these are the same people that end up killing birds and other organisms in these protected areas. We ask locals to get out of these places before we forcefully evicted them, ” he added. 

Mr Gilbert Tayebwa, the African Crane Conservation Programme officer at International Crane Foundation (ICF), said village wetland teams are sensitising residents to ensure that killing of crested cranes stops. 
A recent survey in Lwengo by ICF revealed that there are 1,359 grey crested cranes in the district and with 11 killed ,the number now remains 1,348.