• Veld Facts

Hornbills are a common sight in most of South Africa’s game parks. The biggest member of the hornbill family – and the most conspicuous – is the terrestrial southern ground hornbill. If you spend time in the Kruger Park, chances are you’ll see one of these black-and-red birds, often walking through the grass in a small family group. But their conspicuous nature belies the fact that these hornbills are under severe threat. Only about 1 500 birds remain in the wild in South Africa, largely confined to protected areas. This situation is exacerbated because the birds use a co-operative breeding strategy: A family group consists of only one pair of breeding birds and the rest are helpers – usually males or juvenile birds from previous breeding seasons. Only the alpha pair breeds and there are only about 400 such pairs left. To make matters worse, of the two eggs laid, only the first hatched chick is raised to adulthood. The first-born will kill its sibling. And despite the fact that a ground hornbill can live for a very long time – up to 70 years in captivity – it only breeds every nine years. This is a bird with an incredibly slow reproductive rate to start off with, which means that additional threats like habitat destruction, loss of nesting trees, electrocution and bush encroachment affect the species even more. Because of its size, a hornbill requires a large tree with a proportionally large natural hole inside to make its nest. With the current drought in South Africa, some of these trees have died or toppled over, destroying decades-old nesting holes. There is some good news. Several conservation organisations, including the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project ( ground-hornbill.org.za), do tremendous work protecting ground hornbills. Nests are monitored and in some instances the second-born chick is removed, reared and released again.