A young tour guide and his group of student mentees are helping monitor bird species in Rwanda with the help of a mobile app, Mongabay contributor Mariam Kone reported. Joseph Desiré Dufitumukiza, who enjoys bird-watching, felt moved to take action after he read about the decline of native bird species in Rwanda, including the Maccoa duck (Oxyura maccoa). “If I do not act, any conservation activity will be lost. My kids will not be able to see birds,” Dufitumukiza tells Mongabay. At just 19 years old in 2022, after graduating with a degree in tourism from the University of Tourism, Technology and Business Studies in Rubavu, Dufitumukiza founded the Rugezi Ornithology Center to share his love for wildlife and contribute to conservation efforts. He leads students in bird-watching excursions twice a week in support of the center’s goal to raise community awareness about the need to protect birds and their habitat. In the Mongabay video, Dufitumukiza leads the students on a 30-minute walk to Nyakinama valley in northern Rwanda, where he teaches them about bird families and how to use binoculars and a field guide for the birds in East Africa. They use a parabola, a dish attached to a phone, to record and listen to birds from a distance, and then a free mobile app called Planet Birdsong, which uses artificial intelligence to identify the species. Patrick Bigirimane, one of the tourism students who joins Dufitumukiza, tells the Mongabay team that listening to the sounds makes him feel closer…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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