The rehabilitated secretary bird peered out of its crate, tentatively at first. Then, after a few graceful leaps of its long legs, it headed to freedom into the grasslands of Devon, on the eastern edges of Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
“It went very well,” said Melissa Whitecross, threatened species project manager: raptors and large terrestrial birds at BirdLife SA, of the release this week.
“The bird is cruising in the grasslands of Devon now. Once we pointed him in the right direction, off he went.”
In May, BirdLife SA, together with the Airports Company SA (Acsa) and the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital caught and removed the immature bird from the grasslands adjacent to the runway at OR Tambo International Airport.
“The bird had a severe infection in its left foot and was creeping closer and closer to the edge of the runway, posing a significant bird strike risk for the approaching aircraft,” said Whitecross.
Melissa Hoffmann, OR Tambo environmental manager, had contacted BirdLife SA to help capture the bird and arrange its transportation to a suitable rehabilitation specialist.
“The staff at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital have worked tirelessly to treat the infected foot and get the young bird back up to full strength,” said Whitecross.
Acsa, she said, had funded the cost of a tracking device, which was fitted to the bird, to monitor its movements.
“This (bird’s rehabilitation and release) is a really cool example of how industry and conservation can work together to keep wildlife safe in a heavily transformed environment like Joburg.”
Populations of secretary birds, a large, terrestrial bird of prey, are declining and classified as vulnerable.
A new study, led by biologists of The Peregrine Fund, in co-operation nine other scientific organisations, has revealed that 18% of raptors are threatened with extinction and 52% have declining global populations.
The study is the first comprehensive assessment focused on the status of raptors in the world.
“This study reinforces the fact that as apex-aerial predators, birds of prey are critical barometers of ecosystem health and need the highest level of conservation intervention a collective partnership of conservation organisations and governments is needed at an unprecedented level to reverse this trend,” said the vice-president of the Peregrine Fund Dr Munir Virani.