White Rhinos in the Skukuza Boma
Complex were constantly harassed
by redbilled oxpeckers
They flocked into Skukuza. They came from as far as the Limpopo Valley in the far north of the country. They answered a call.
The call was simply that redbilled oxpeckers (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) were irritating the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) in Skukuza’s Game Capture Boma Complex so much so that some sort of management action had to be taken.
White Rhinos in the Skukuza Boma
Complex were constantly harassed
by redbilled oxpeckers
“The boma is an artificial environment temporary holding a high concentration of rhinos, which attracts a high number of oxpeckers. Rhinos often develop sores that are constantly pecked at or irritated in this closed environment so we needed to take some action,” says KNP Veterinary Wildlife Services’ Marius Kruger. So an Operation Oxpecker team of bird capture experts from various organisations were called in to help.
Operation Oxpecker is an official programme of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) Wildlife Conflict Prevention Group which aims to influence farmers to convert to more oxpecker-friendly farming practice and has already made large areas in much of South Africa more oxpecker-friendly.
“What many farmers don’t realise is that these birds have a role to play and we try and educate land owners and users on these roles before we reintroduce them,” says EWT’s Arnaud le Roux.
So, if you’ll pardon the expression, SANParks and EWT decided to “kill-two-birds-with-one-stone” and removed the
irritating oxpeckers from the Skukuza bomas and reintroduced them into areas where these birds’ population levels have dropped.
Got 'im!: An oxpecker
is caught in the net!
The team put up mis nets around and in the bomas and waited. “This part is a bit like fishing,” explains Le Roux, “we have baited the hook and thrown it into the water and now we wait for a bite.” And it was not long before the first birds flew into the nets.
The team quickly moved to untangle the birds from the nets and carry them to various tables – set up to look a bit like a laboratory-in-the-veld – which proceeded to ring them (SAFRING and colour),
weigh them, measure them, take blood samples and generally assess their health before they are put into a large, sausage-shaped sack.
Once the numbers in these sacks built up, they were in turn taken to a specially constructed bird cage at the Skukuza Boma Complex where they spent the next seven days in compulsory quarantine. Here they were regularly fed a concoction of blood and mince-meat.
The birds are fed a cocktail
of mince meat and blood
A total of 62 birds were caught over the two-day capture period and these have been split into two groups, 50 going to a conservancy in the Waterberg in Limpopo Province and the balance going to Game Valley near Howick in KwaZulu-Natal.
So now, the rhinos are happier, the oxpeckers have a new home and an improved ecological balance has fallen on two more areas of South Africa with a healthy base population of redbilled oxpeckers.
And, just in case you were wondering, no stones were thrown at any birds, or any rhinos for that matter.
