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Should we protect ugly birds too?
Episode 618th December 2024 • Africa with André • André Thomas
00:00:00 00:25:16

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Should we protect ugly birds too? We talk about that, and other interesting projects.

Jaco explains how muppets prevent sibling murders amongst the surprisingly valuable Shoebills in Zambia, and chats to us about other conservation projects in Chad and Ivory Coast.

He also tells us about game drives, horseback safaris and the fascinating veterinary safaris they offer with elephants and lions at Botlierskop Game Reserve in South Africa.

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Botlierskop Game Reserve: https://www.botlierskop.co.za/

Shoebills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoebill

Shoebill info & sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqrQJ2LLtMs

Scimitar Oryx: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_oryx

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Sound credits: uppbeat.io/ and https://pixabay.com/ 

Transcripts

Episode 6: Should we protect ugly birds too? We talk about that, and other interesting projects.

Welcome to a new episode of Africa with André, where we celebrate Africa - One story at a Time.

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When we last chatted to him, we spoke about the work that Botlierskop does in conservation on its own reserve and together with its neighbours. Welcome back, Jaco. Nice to have you back here.

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[00:00:39] André: That's fine. I think the conversation went in a couple of directions, which I think were fantastic. Let's go back to visitors, to your reserve and how they can experience the conservation work that you do. Obviously, game drives are the classic thing that you do where you go out in a vehicle, normally an open sided vehicle where guests will then sit and travel through the reserve with a ranger who will tell them about various plants and various animals that they see.

Tell us what else, guests can experience.

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So technically doing the same thing, but instead of being on a vehicle, you're now on a horse. And the thing about this is that you don't really have to be an experienced horse rider. Even if you've never been on a horse before, you're still more than welcome to come and do a horseback safari here.

We'll just make sure that you stay with other inexperienced guests so that you're also you know, comfortable.

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I mean, you and I know the animals don't do that, but someone who's never been on a game drive, they're like, hhmm, is this safe? And now you're telling me they need to get on a horseback, which arguably a horse is part of the diet of some of the animals that you have. Explain to me how anyone would want to do this?

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So, they need to learn not only how to spot animals, but how to spot animal behaviour and body language. So, they need to be able to read, if we're on the way to the elephants, I see the elephants in the distance. All right, we're about 100 meters away now. How are they looking? Are they calm? Are they looking aggressive?

And then it comes to the distance that he will then keep from them. So, we of course do have strict rules. And sometimes, I do understand that some of the guests might not be as happy as they want to be able to have the elephant slap them in the face with his trunk. They want to be that close.

But these animals are wild animals. They are free roaming wild animals. So that's why it's really important to keep a safe following distance number one, and then to also keep on reading the language.

Are we safe? Are we not safe? What is happening over here? And then when it comes to the horseback safaris, it's even more important because there you have to keep an even further distance away from the animals. Because like you said, not only are you on some of these animals' midnight snacks, running around on them, but you're also more exposed, right?

But luckily, we haven't had any incidents where something bad happened. And once again, I want to take my hat off to the guides because it can be very easy for them to break the rules, give the people a closer look at these animals.

But they also do realize that not only are they here to educate and entertain but they're also here to protect those people. Those people's lives are in their hands,

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And I actually had the opportunity to do a horseback, safari with your owner Arnold a couple of years back. And I'm not a horse person at all. I have never ridden a horse, and these horses are so well trained that just with a slight movement of the hand from left to right, the horse followed exactly where we needed to go.

And I didn't feel unsafe even for a minute.

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[00:05:42] André: Apart from game drives and horseback safaris is how else to do guests...

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Now the veterinary safaris is a very interesting activity and we wish we could do more of these, but unfortunately we're very limited as most of these procedures, if we look at the rhino veterinary safaris, these procedures we have to carry out only once in a rhino's life.

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[00:07:05] Jaco: So, for the vet safari, you actually going out on safari with the veterinarian. So not only do you learn from him, you physically see everything he does on, let's say, a yearly basis with either it's checkups, drawing blood, maybe, implanting some sort of vaccine that the animals might need, general care, looking at the health of the animal, teeth, the tongue, all of these different types of things. Maybe even he will add a little IV if they maybe need some minerals or vitamins. Um, he'll of course do that. And you get to experience this firsthand. So, you're driving with the vet in the vehicle, you standing next to him while he's doing these procedures.

And sometimes guests are even lucky enough where the vet might need a hand. Let's say he's busy with something and he needs someone to quickly check the pulse. Then someone might even have the opportunity to check the animal's pulse. Of course, the animal will be sedated, because we can't carry these, veterinary services out, while the animal is still 100 percent awake.

So, it brings people closer to conservation and I want to use the rhino as my example here, because they can see firstly, the size of this creature. It's, from a distance, even a safe viewing distance. You don't really get the real scale and ratio of how large these animals are.

Secondly, you don't understand how much goes into protecting these species. Unfortunately, I can't delve into too much details, for the protection, of our rhinos. But lots of measures that have to be taken.

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[00:08:51] Jaco: So those are the rhinos. Then we do lions and lionesses, and we also do elephants.

What's very important with the elephants and why we do these only with the bulls or the males. it will happen once a year where we need to actually suppress the testosterone because, on the property currently, about 5’500 hectares, we do have five elephants. And now for the elephants to be safe and happy, they need about a thousand hectares each.

So, at this stage, we can't have our elephants breed and have more elephants because it will have such a negative impact, not only on the property and the flora but also for the happiness and the welfare of the elephants themselves. So that's why we do have to get their testosterone in, um, keep the levels at a low stage so that they don't go into, their breeding

testosterone levels, if that makes sense.

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[00:10:56] Jaco: Oh, very good question, André. Very good question. And this is coming back to the rangers where they have a very important job to look out for these types of things. recently, just for an example, we had a zebra with an overgrown hoof.

So what happened was this hoof was so long that this animal started walking more and more cripple every day, every day we kept on checking, it kept on getting worse and worse and worse and eventually it had to be a quick emergency treatment.

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[00:11:40] Jaco: The thing is for us, André, it's also when guests experience that, we don't ever want someone to have a negative connotation to anything we do. So, if you see, for example, this zebra with the overgrown hoof, it looks like we're not taking care of the animal.

That's sort of what it looks like in a sense. So, because we do love all our animals, and we do want to give them a fair fighting chance.

And the thing is, for example, in the Kruger, there's loads of lions and loads of cheetahs. We don't really have that many predators, so the chance of that animal actually getting caught is much smaller

So, for us, we have to give him, you know, also a, surviving chance.

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[00:12:40] Jaco: Exactly. That, I couldn't have said a better myself that makes it makes 100 percent sense the way that you said it.

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Tell me a little bit about that.

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Not a lot of people know this, but, the shoebill chicks, because they're such a rare and really endangered bird, the chicks actually are worth more than rhino horn.

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[00:14:01] Jaco: It's once again, people that are stealing them from the nests and selling them as pets and these exotic collectors, because they're so rare, they fetch just astronomical prices. So once again, it's no one's fault, but humans. And not only the humans actually stealing them, but also the humans destroying the wetlands where their natural habitats are, for expansion of farmlands or cities or whatever.

But there's also another small element to these birds that does make it a little bit harder. And that's the fact that they are actually Cain and Abel birds. So, they will always lay two eggs, the mom. And then what happens is, um, the first hatchling will then, of course, kill the second hatchling.

Once again, very sad to say, but it's just the way of nature.

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[00:15:20] Jaco: yeah, so it's called Cain and Abel Behaviour. There is in some other animal species, they do have the same sort of behaviours. It's not only the Shoebills, but we now actually went and used this as a tool to, to help them. So, what we did now is firstly we employed lots of these nest guards. And literally these people work in shifts around the clock and all they do is guard the nests so that poachers don't come and steal them.

They literally guard the nests and then they'll also notice for any sort of movements, and they'll leave them until the first hatchling hatches. What they'll then do is they'll actually take the second egg away and this egg will go into an artificial incubation chamber.

So, they do have this artificial incubation in the rehab facility. But where the tricky part now comes in is these birds are now hatching. And obviously like most other birds, they do get fed by their mothers. So how are we going to get this bird to get fed by something that looks like his mom?

I mean, we can't take him back to his nest because his brother or sister is going to kill him. But how do we do this? And

So the, I, I can't remember the gentleman's name now. I do apologize, André, but he's, he's actually the Muppet man. So, the man that created and made all the puppets for the Muppet show,

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[00:16:54] Jaco: he actually sponsored two puppets that he made, that looked like these big shoebills. So now instead of there being a human interaction, they're actually feeding them with these puppets. And that way they still, it still looks like the mom, you know, it still smells like the mom and everything like that.

So, a really incredible thing that, I think it's, going into their second or third successful breeding season. So really, awesome project and one of my personal favourite.

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[00:17:35] Jaco: Exactly. Yeah. They get released back into the wetlands because that's where they thrive. And the thing is you don't really want to, remove the animals out of their natural habitat, especially with birds that are very delicate to their surroundings and the humidity and everything that they need right there.

And as well, what they feed off. But yeah, I must once again say, if listeners, please, if you haven't seen a Shoebill yet, Please, please, please Google it, have a look at these guys and also Google the sound they make. You will not believe the crazy sound these Shoebills make.

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But I think that's something we'll have to have to leave for another time.

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[00:18:37] André: Exactly. Exactly. What other projects have you got in the rest of Africa?

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So, I think they've been, extinct in the country itself for about 30 years, um, that they literally haven't seen a single one in the wild naturally occurring. So, then Dr. Willem and AWCF had to actually relocate some Scimitar Oryxes from neighbouring countries and back into Chad now that things are becoming a lot better.

And that's one of my other favourites. And then, if I can just highlight another last quick story.

It was actually a rhino rescue in the Ivory Coast. I always tell people South Africa is sort of Africa light in a sense it's not, even though we do have lots of rural areas and you still get the feeling of Africa and I still love South Africa the most out of any country in the world.

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[00:19:53] Jaco: Ivory Coast is still real, real, real, real, untouched, beautiful Africa.

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[00:20:00] Jaco: And this rhino was living close to this village, and he was wild, the villagers loved him, had no issues with him, and then he killed their chief, one evening by accident.

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[00:20:14] Jaco: So, the rhino killed the chief and Dr. Willem, everyone, made huge missions to get there as quickly as possible. And they had this rhino in the Boma. And of course they started moving him. And when he got to the new area where he was going to be released, Dr. Willem had a heart attack almost. Because this gentleman arrived in this bright pink robe and he had this sort of glass of gin in his hand and he thought, oh my goodness, what is this now? They're going to come to take revenge for their chief now. We need to get the hell out of here right now.

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[00:20:49] Jaco: and next moment, this guy had a megaphone, and he was making a bunch of noise. And Dr. Willem asked one of the translators, “Listen, are we safe? Are we alright? Like, what is this guy doing?”

And he said, “Don't worry, you couldn't be safer. What he's doing is, they love this rhino so much still. The whole village has come out and he is now blessing the soil where this rhino will walk on for the rest of his life.” And,

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[00:21:21] Jaco: and Dr. Willem said for him, that was Africa.

It's this love for nature, this love for the natural elements, for the wildlife. Even though this rhino did something so bad, like accidentally killed their chief. He still wanted to go and bless the new ground that this rhino is going to be walking on. And that's Africa. Africa is just unforgiving, but the most beautiful place in the world.

And, and I think the, the thing that makes Africa, the special place that it is, is all of us Africans. I think all Africans are just wired differently in loving nature and loving and caring for each other. For communities, for everyone around us.

And, and I think that stems back to nature.

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So cannot say Botlierskop, but what is your favourite part? Where are you happiest?

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The road will be dead straight. There will be zero turns in the road, but everything just stays so, so, so beautiful. And I don't think you've really seen a sunset in your life. If you haven't seen a Namibian desert sunset.

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[00:23:57] Jaco: No, that's very true. Hey, that's very true. and I think that's the reason why Namibia is so special to me is you keep on driving and just when you think you've seen it all, you see something new. And the Namibian people as well are just incredible.

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[00:24:29] Jaco: It's a big pleasure, André, and looking forward to our next chat.

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I encourage you to Google the Shoebill and decide for yourself if you agree with that. I hope you've enjoyed listening as much as I've enjoyed doing this interview. Please do rate this podcast on Spotify or Apple or wherever else you listen to it and feel free to leave comments and share it with your friends and family - until next time!

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