Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
This IBA is a 61-km stretch of coast in the north-east of the country, between the rocky outcrop at Kadda Guéïni and the border town of Doumêra, and includes the peninsulas at Ras Siyyan and Doumêra. The site is a flat, largely featureless sand- or gravel-plain with sparse herbaceous vegetation and scattered rocky outcrops, the largest (on the peninsula at Ras Siyyan) rising to 138 m. The shoreline is a mixture of rocky areas (e.g. around Ras Siyyan), old coral reefs, which are exposed at low tide (around Moulhoulé, a village approximately midway along the coast) and sandy beaches (e.g. Doumêra). There is a lagoon with sandy shores and a small area of mangrove at Ras Siyyan, a further small area of mangrove and a village at Khôr Angar, and other settlements at Moulhoulé and Doumêra.
See Box for key species. Lying at the narrowest point of the Bab-el-Mandeb Straits, the site is a migration bottleneck, with huge numbers of raptors, and significant numbers of other birds, crossing the Red Sea from the Arabian peninsula in the autumn (spring migration has not been investigated). This is one of the most important sites in Africa for migrating raptors, with over 246,000 individuals of 28 species being counted during a 38-day period in October–November 1987. The most numerous species were
Buteo buteo (98,339)
and
Aquila nipalensis (76,586). Also recorded were 67
Circus macrourus, 70
Aquila heliaca and 20
A. clanga, as well as eight
Falco naumanni. In addition to raptors, smaller numbers of
Ciconia nigra,
C. abdimii,
C. ciconia and
Grus grus were also recorded. Four Sahara–Sindian, one Sahel and one Somali–Masai biome species also occur at the site (see Table 2).
Non-bird biodiversity: The sea-turtle Chelonia mydas (EN) is frequently recorded off the coast and on the sandy beaches in the Doumêra area, and Eretmochelys imbricata (CR) possibly occurs. The mammal Dugong dugon (VU) has also been sighted offshore.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
There are currently no known threats to the birds migrating through this area. However, given the great importance of the site for migrating raptors, protection is recommended to safeguard against inappropriate future developments. Although hunting of wildlife is prohibited in Djibouti,
Chelonia mydas is frequently caught in the area by foreign fishermen, and measures to control this are urgently needed.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Kadda Guéïni - Doumêra (Djibouti). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/kadda-guéïni--doumêra-iba-djibouti on 23/11/2024.
