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August 25, 2005

Muppet Mommies For Baby Hornbills

The South African Ground Hornbills look like giant black turkeys. When we were in Kruger, we saw quite a few of them wandering around on the ground as well as in dead trees.

One thing we didn't see was any nests. We were, however, asked to mark on a map any male or female ground hornbills we saw. Ground hornbills are carnivorous and tend to mate in monogamous pairs. One other interesting fact is that ground hornbills don't seem to drink water, but instead ingest enough moisture from their food.

The South African bushveld is a dry, hostile environment and animal mortality is very high due to disease, predation, and other factors. Ground hornbills seem to have adopted a rather Darwinian policy in terms of their feeding behavior with their young. Despite laying and hatching multiple chicks, they only seem to feed one of them. In fact, a group of hornbills will contain only one alpha male/female pair, which will do the breeding for the group. The group then helps feed the young - always a difficult task when you live in a place where it's hard enough to feed yourself.

With the ground hornbill teetering on the edge of the endangered species list, South African scientists have decided to pick up the slack themselves, kidnapping the unfed baby chicks and feeding them until they are strong enough to be re-released into the wild. In order to keep the hornbills from associating humans with food, these scientists dress up as hornbills using an almost comical but brilliantly simple sock puppet disguise.

Researchers hoping to increase the breeding rate of southern Africa's increasingly rare ground hornbill have taken to feeding abandoned chicks with puppets disguised as the birds' parents.

The faux foster mother may seem real to the ground hornbill chick. But inside the puppet head is a human hand trying to save the chick and its species from sliding to extinction.

Ground hornbills lay up to three eggs at a time, but they feed only one chick. Conservationists collect remaining hatchlings that are otherwise left to starve and hand-feed them.

More at: National Geographic: Puppets Help Raise Africa's Abandoned Hornbill Chicks

Posted by sorsha at August 25, 2005 5:36 PM