SA Hunters’ conservation manager, Lizanne Nel, recently gave a presentation to local landowners, game farms, hunting outfitters, and private nature reserves in the Rooiberg Conservancy as part of a drive to improve the conservation and reintroduction of ground hornbills in the conservancy. Lucy Kemp and her team from the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project are doing wonderful but challenging work to ensure the presence of these magnificent birds in the landscape.

In addition to the typical challenges associated with reintroductions, these birds face being electrocuted at transformers, being poisoned unintentionally by ingesting lead particles in meat left for scavengers, or poisons used for predation management.  

About 50 people attended the meeting at the Qwabi Private Nature Reserve. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive to our message of a collaborative conservation approach where all role players that form part of the Rooiberg Conservancy, agree on best practice principles to improve the survival of these magnificent birds.

Proposed best practice principles include:

• a joint and collaborative approach to conservation in the broader landscape as these birds fly from one farm to another;
• discussions with Eskom to address the risks of powerlines and transformers;
• managing the risks associated with lead particles in the veld to which these birds are highly sensitive; and
• ecological and environmentally friendly approaches to predation management.