Following a stork named Fill
Dr Lindy Thompson and John Davies (EWT Birds of Prey Programme) and Jonah Gula (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
In January 2023, Lindy Thompson and John Davies (from the EWT’s Birds of Prey Programme) joined UKZN PhD student Jonah Gula for fieldwork in the Lowveld. Jonah aimed to trap four Marabou Storks and fit them with tracking devices as part of his PhD project, but first, he needed to find a site with large numbers of Marabous. We suggested he try the vulture feeding site at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, where many Marabous congregate daily. Moholoholo kindly permitted us to work on their land. We arrived early on the first morning and set our traps, with Jonah squeezed into John’s tiny hide and Lindy and John waiting nearby in a vehicle to assist when needed. And so, we waited. The Marabous proved to be much more wily birds than we initially gave them credit for. They were highly suspicious of our trap, approaching it cautiously, skirting it carefully, and rushing enthusiastically to the food on the other side. This happened repeatedly, and on one occasion, when it seemed like a Marabou might walk unwittingly into our trap, a family of warthogs would suddenly appear walking in the same direction. We could not risk catching a warthog piglet by mistake, so we would have to rush towards the trap to scare away the piglets and, in turn, the Marabous.
After a few unsuccessful days of trying to trap Marabous at Moholoholo, John suggested we try a different location. So we headed to Phalaborwa to check out a landfill site friends had told us about. We drove in and saw dozens of Marabous standing on the giant mounds of rubbish. The birds were slowly walking in amongst the garbage pickers, and everyone (people and birds alike) was bent over and slowly picking through pieces of trash. We felt the fact that these birds seemed much more tame might help us when trying to trap them. And so we set our trap, and again we waited at a respectful distance, sitting in the vehicle as the temperatures soared into the high thirties, waiting for some Marabous to walk towards our trap. After a few hours in the car, Jonah decided a little more encouragement was needed, and he hopped out of the bakkie and started trying to herd the Marabous towards our trap. Immediately these intelligent birds knew what he was up to, and most of the flock flew up, over the trap, and away. A few hours later, after more waiting and some more of Jonah’s persistent herding, a few birds flew towards the trap and landed there. I drove closer to Jonah so he could hop into the vehicle, and we edged closer to the trap. After a few minutes, Jonah leapt out and ran towards the trap. After 11 hours of waiting at the landfill that day, we had caught our first Marabou!
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UKZN PhD student Jonah Gula is seen optimistically preparing his equipment for the morning’s trapping session at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre. © L. Thompson
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After we finally caught our first Marabou, workers kindly helped us to hold the bird, one holding the legs and the other holding the bill, while Jonah fitted the tracking device. The table from our Alu-Cab canopy came in very handy for this work. © L. Thompson
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Marabous have a quirky and carefree hairstyle, as modelled here by ‘Fill’. © L. Thompson
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‘Fill’ the Marabou Stork (left), with the white transmitter visible on his back, after being released. © L. Thompson
Jonah gently and firmly restrained the bird, and I asked two workers to please come and assist us as Marabous are large birds, and it takes many pairs of hands to hold them. With their help, Jonah calmly fitted the tracking device using a chest harness. A few minutes later, Jonah tucked the bird under his arm, walked a little way away from where we were working, and let the bird go. We were ecstatic to have caught our first Marabou, which Jonah named ‘Fill’ after the landfill site. We stayed at the landfill until dusk to ensure that Fill was looking comfortable and moving normally with his new tracking device, and when everything seemed fine, we finally headed off home.
Since Fill was tagged, we know he has used other waste sites, such as landfills and a slaughterhouse in Polokwane, but we hope to know more about his successes and failures rummaging in the rubbish. We look forward to following his movements and reading about Jonah’s results in the years to come.
We are extremely grateful to the staff and management of Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre and Phalaborwa Landfill Site for their kind support of Jonah’s work. We are thankful for our Ford Wildlife Foundation vehicle and Alu-Cab canopy, both essential to this fieldwork. This work was conducted with a Limpopo research permit from LEDET (permit no. ZA/LP/1156110).
Jonah has already published two papers on Marabou Storks, and you can find the details in the Reference List below. You can also find him on Twitter at @JonahGula. We wish him all the best with his studies.
Reference List:
Gula, J. and Barlow, C.R. 2022. Decline of the Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer) in West Africa and the need for immediate conservation action. African Journal of Ecology 61:102-117. https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.13087
Gula, J., Clay Green, M., Fritts, S., Dean, W.R.J. and Gopi Sundar, K.S. 2022. Assessments of range-wide distribution of six African storks and their relationships with protected areas. Ostrich 93: 34-52. https://doi.org/10.2989/00306525.2022.2045642