2,000 baby flamingos rescued after being abandoned in South African drought

The birds are being hand-reared by volunteers as months of dry weather threatens breeding ground

Guardian staff and agencies

Thu 7 Feb 2019 02.49 GMTLast modified on Thu 7 Feb 2019 10.27 GMT

Under warming red light at a rescue centre in Cape Town baby flamingos are fed, weighed and cared for. The chicks are among 2,000 that were rescued after they were abandoned by their parents as dam waters dried up in South Africa.

A special airlift for thousands of baby flamingos is under way in South Africaas drought has put their breeding ground in peril, with a reservoir that hosts one of southern Africa’s largest flamingo populations drying up.

Nicky Stander, rehabilitation manager at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds in Cape Town (SANCCOB), said her team swung into action when news of the abandoned birds broke last month.

 “We rehabilitate, that’s our business, and with the aim of releasing back into the wild. We have very large facilities here that were built last year. And we thought we were the best people to contribute to this project,” said Stander.

“As time goes on and they grow, we are going have to adapt the way that we house them and make sure that they have long running space so they can exercise their legs.”

South Africa has faced an extended period of severe drought, with the government announcing “day zero” – a moment when dam levels would be so low that they would turn off the taps in Cape Town and send people to communal water collection points.

This apocalyptic notion prompted water stockpiling and panic, but also led to a dramatic reduction in per capita water usage and day zero was eventually averted. But the impacts of the drought are still being felt.

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Birders have RARE shot to spot Tree Pipit on Table Mountain

2015-08-07 10:54 - Louzel Lombard

Cape Town - SANParks has agreed to open the Perdekloof picnic site, usually closed in winter for a short time in a bid to make the most of a rare Tree Pipit seen in the area. 

Perdekloof picnic site will be opened to the general public on Friday, 7 August, from 09:00 to 14:00 only.

On Monday, 3 August, SANParks got exciting news of an odd bird - possibly the rare Tree Pipit - photographed at Perdekloof Picnic Site near Cape Point in Table Mountain National Park. 

Although the photos taken on the day (not the photo seen below) were not of the greatest quality, SANPark said, "The bird looks very much like a Tree Pipit."

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Farmer convicted of killing vultures

October 20 2014 at 09:16am 

By Kieran Legg

For some of the people working tirelessly to look after the Cape vulture s dwindling population, the sentence is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Cape Town - An Eastern Cape farmer has been convicted of killing 46 endangered vultures after the birds feasted on a poison-laced sheep’s carcass he had left outside to kill a pack of stray dogs.

Last week he was sentenced to a year in prison, suspended for five years, and ordered to pay more than R20 000.

For some of the people working tirelessly to look after the Cape vulture’s dwindling population, the sentence is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Conservationists are now calling for laws around the use of poison and the protection of animals to be re-evaluated to save the birds from extinction.

In December last year, Armand Aucamp – a 34-year-old farmer with a plot of land in the province’s Molteno district – had laced a sheep’s carcass with the insecticide carbofuran.

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South African energy company re-routes electricity lines to save buzzard's nest

A recent power outage affecting six towns near Vredendal, north of Cape Town in South Africa, was traced to a jackal buzzard that had made its nest in the wires and hatched two chicks.

Although jackal buzzards are not endangered, they play a vital role in the sensitive, arid landscape surrounding Vredendal, so engineers from the Eskom power company contacted the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) for assistance. 

Although several suggestions were put forward on how to resolve the outage problem, one thought was common for both Eskom and the EWT – that the nest should not be removed.

It was decided that the best course of action, causing the least disturbance, would be to re-route the power line. 

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