Birders

Archived News

Support the Lowveld/KNP Large Bird Project

Date: 2008-02-26

The  Endangered Wild Life Trust's 'Birds of Prey Working Group' (EWT-BoPWG) recently launched a Lowveld/Kruger National Park (KNP) Large Bird Project. To support this project, the group are looking at working with SANParks to provide training to Field Rangers on the identification and monitoring of some of the key large bird species in the Kruger National Park.

The purpose of this project is to refine the quality of data collected on the large birds of the area down to species, sex and age level if possible. The SANParks forum birdclub has already assisted in this project through the production of posters in support of the project.

According to André Botha, Manager: EWT-BoPWG, previous experience of training guides and rangers in the area has shown that the best resource to use for this basic training, is Newmans' Birds of the Kruger National Park (Southern Books). This is because it contains only species likely to occur in the area and prevents a lot of potential confusion compared to using a field guide focused on the entire sub-region.

As such, the EWT-BoPWG appeals to anyone with a copy (or copies) of any edition of this field guide that they no longer use, to donate such copies to the group for use in the above initiative.

Please keep in mind that this training is focused on monitoring rather than to train guides in any capacity in the area. You can contact  André Botha, Manager: Birds of Prey Working Group should you wish to contribute to this initiative.

André Botha, Manager: Birds of Prey Working Group

Tel: +27 (0)11 486 1102

Fax: +27 (0)11 486 1506

andreb@ewt.org.za