HOME | DD

Description

Southern Ground-hornbills are both culturally and ecologically important. They are hailed across their sub-Saharan range as the thunderbirds or rainbirds. They are also a valuable flagship species for the savannah biome as they are easily recognizable and with such large spatial requirements, any successful conservation action in even one of their expansive territories benefits all the other savanna and grassland species, including threatened species such as vultures, wild dog, and cheetah. Their populations continue to decline towards being "Critically Endangered" in South Africa. The reasons for their decline are predominantly loss of habitat to bush-encroachment and development, overgrazing, large-scale monoculture, loss of large nesting trees, besides secondary poisoning, lead toxicosis from spent lead ammunition, and electrocution on transformer boxes.

Info sourced from ground-hornbill.org.za/

Photo capture date & Location: 2017-02 Bushtime at Mabula

Description

Southern Ground-hornbills are both culturally and ecologically important. They are hailed across their sub-Saharan range as the thunderbirds or rainbirds. They are also a valuable flagship species for the savannah biome as they are easily recognizable and with such large spatial requirements, any successful conservation action in even one of their expansive territories benefits all the other savanna and grassland species, including threatened species such as vultures, wild dog, and cheetah. Their populations continue to decline towards being "Critically Endangered" in South Africa. The reasons for their decline are predominantly loss of habitat to bush-encroachment and development, overgrazing, large-scale monoculture, loss of large nesting trees, besides secondary poisoning, lead toxicosis from spent lead ammunition, and electrocution on transformer boxes.

Info sourced from ground-hornbill.org.za/

Photo capture date & Location: 2017-02 Bushtime at Mabula