[Thank you to Conservation Champions Gavin Chamberlain and his team for running another successful fundraising campaign. His team provided magnificent wildlife photos, and they designed and printed these 2021 wildlife calendars to raise funds for our conservation activities. There are still some left if you would like to grab one. They are R150 each, and all proceeds go to the EWT.
Rebotile Rachuene, African Grass-owl Project Coordinator, EWT’s Birds of Prey Programme (BOPP), tselaner@ewt.org.za
Five years ago, we embarked on a project to monitor African Grass-owl fledgelings once they leave their nests to understand their movement patterns and behaviour. To do so, we ring them so that we, and others, can identify individual owls when they are seen again.
Since 2017, we have ringed at least 30 individuals from both the Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces. The majority of these individuals were fledgelings, and two were breeding adults. The ringing follows extensive field monitoring to ensure that the nests are not disturbed during the owls’ breeding and nesting periods. As soon as they reach fledgeling age, we go in and ring them
This month, we were fortunate enough to ring five fledgelings, about six weeks old, now from two different nests in Midrand, Gauteng, two siblings from one nest, and three from the other. Working together with our partner, the Greater Kyalami Conservancy (GEKCO), we have successfully safeguarded these nests and eventually successfully ringed our first clutch of fledgelings in the area since 2018. One nest is in a site destroyed by fire in the 2018/2019 season, and the other is in a new breeding site that we discovered had been occupied recently – very exciting news! The five chicks were released and will be monitored closely up until they fledge and find their own sites to nest in. In 2019, one of our ringed birds was found actively breeding 10 km away from where it was ringed, which was extremely valuable information, demonstrating how this form of monitoring can provide us with a better understanding of how far they can travel in search of new territories.
In loving memory of Gary Grant
Tammy Baker, EWT Business Development Officer
Gary Grant was one of the kindest and most generous individuals I have ever met. Gary was a big family man and loved nothing more than to spend time in the bush with his wife Debbie and his son and daughter.
His wife Debbie had this to say about Gary:“Gary was an incredibly special man, and we miss him desperately. I just want to say a huge thank you to you for organising one of Gary’s best days in the bush – this would be the day we spent with Grant doing the Wild Dog tracking in the Kruger, whilst an incredible experience at the time, is now also a cherished memory for me of Gary at his absolute happiest. The EWT will always remain close to my heart, and I promise I’ll try to ensure that we continue with Gary’s commitments to yourselves.
Yolan Friedmann, EWT CEO wrote the following tribute:
“Gary’s unfailing love of wildlife and his support of the Endangered Wildlife Trust ensured that we were able to undertake much more work to save the threatened species that rely on us for their future and this was even more valued in a year that was just as tough for them. Gary’s legacy will live on, not just in our hearts, but in the conservation benefits his support brought to Wild Dogs, Cheetahs, vultures, cranes, and a host of other threatened species. We will honour his memory through the life of a dedicated indigenous tree planted at our Campus in Midrand, and we will never forget the role he played in all our lives.
Celebrating the life of conservation legend Anne van Dyk
The EWT is deeply saddened by the passing of Ann van Dyk. Ann dedicated her life to the conservation of Cheetahs and was intimately involved with the EWT’s work from the early 1970s to generate interest, funding, and action for Cheetah conservation. Anne van Dyk played an important role in kick-starting the Cheetah Range Expansion work currently coordinated by the EWT. The major changes in land use that came with South Africa’s transition to democracy opened up millions of hectares of suitable habitat for wild Cheetahs and they recolonised from Botswana into areas where they been almost eradicated for decades, including the Bray-Vryburg area of the North West, the Lephalale-Thabazimbi area of the Waterberg, and the Hoedspruit-Phalaborwa area of the Lowveld. Wildlife ranchers and livestock farmers did not want these economically destructive animals on their properties. In the process, 157 ‘problem’ Cheetahs were removed from farms and ranches and relocated to 41 newly established state and private game reserves across the country.
More than 100 Cheetahs were held temporarily at the Anne van Dyk De Wildt Cheetah Centre before being released back into free-ranging conditions at their new reserves. These actions essentially established a new network of reserves that contained Cheetahs, where they had been previously wiped out. In 2009, when the wild Cheetah component of De Wildt’s work was handed over to the EWT, this network included 217 Cheetahs on 41 reserves. Since then, we have increased this population to 455 wild Cheetahs on 63 reserves and expanded beyond South African borders to Malawi and Zambia. This restored population of wild Cheetahs currently constitutes the only growing wild Cheetah population worldwide. Over the years, the EWT and Ann worked together on numerous projects, including vulture conservation and nurturing conservation talent.
The EWT thanks Ann for her enormous contribution to Cheetah conservation through the awareness, knowledge, and value she generated for this threatened species over 60 years. We salute her and send our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends who mourn her loss.
Esther Matthew, EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme, estherm@ewt.org.zaThe Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) has been operating in Loxton (Northern Cape) for the past 15 years, the EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme based in this one-primary-school-town. The Loxton school, JJ Booysen, burned down in 2017, including the school’s computer room, which has severely limited learner and community member exposure to technology. In 2018, we opened the EWT E-learning Centre, with support from Rand Merchant Bank, to fill the gap. To date, we have hosted three six-week courses for Grade 7s (11-13 years of age), two Google Earth courses for students and emerging farmers, and a photography course for teenagers that we hope to host once a year going forward. The centre was also used in 2019 to host adult literacy classes.
The Laslappies are a local, all-women needlework cooperative based in Loxton. Their cooperative was established in 2018, and their needlework was originally inspired by the Critically Endangered Riverine Rabbit occurring in the surrounding area. Since the start of the cooperative, the ladies have steadily grown their business and are now creating everything from curtains to face masks, both for the community and larger commercial companies.
The EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme supports these ladies’ efforts by providing them with additional opportunities and training, and the Laslappies started their first computer skills classes this month at the EWT’s E-learning Centre in Loxton. In these classes, the ladies will learn how to create documents, send emails, scan and print documents, and other skills beneficial for their business activities. We want to give special thanks to our two local volunteers, Llewellyn and Dante, for hosting these sessions. We hope to one day expand and improve the centre to provide training to larger groups of learners and community members.
This initiative is made possible by Rand Merchant Bank.
My involvement with EWT goes back to the late 1970s when I became aware of the amazing work being done even then by the EWT and its charismatic and committed Founder, Clive Walker.
I was particularly impressed that, despite running on a shoestring, based on funds raised from the sale of prints of Clive’s paintings (see here), and through the efforts of a dedicated volunteer Ladies Committee, EWT was able to make a discernible difference in Southern African conservation. It was not just the conservation of Cheetah and Wild Dog that drew my attention, but I was particularly moved by EWT’s contribution towards saving the desert elephants and desert rhinos in the remote regions of Namibia and the engagement of local communities to help make this happen.
I volunteered my services to Clive as a reasonably well-connected businessman and fundraiser, and one of my first successes for the EWT was to raise funds to repair the leaking roof of the old premises at the Johannesburg Zoo.
In the early 1980s, then EWT Chairperson Angus Morrison invited me to become a Trustee. By this stage, Dr John Ledger had become EWT’s Director, and the Trust was expanding its reach, building on the solid foundation created by Clive Walker and the earlier Trustees. As a Trustee, I continued to be active in the procurement and fundraising areas and was also privileged to represent EWT in various forums, including presenting a special award to the SANDF unit that did the most for conservation. Later on, I was instrumental in merging the African Raptor Information Centre into the EWT’s Raptor Conservation Group.
I migrated to Australia in 1999, where my future wife lived, but was requested by John Ledger to remain a Trustee. I did so until 2006 when I felt that as a Trustee living abroad, with limited opportunity to make a worthwhile contribution, I should step down and make way for other potential Trustees living in South Africa, who would be better able to serve EWT. However, my interest in EWT has never abated, not least because of my many years of involvement and my life membership of the organisation but importantly because of the great strides EWT is making in wildlife conservation and human engagement.
I had met Yolan Friedmann during my time with EWT when she was involved, together with Dr Paul Bartels, in an EWT-supported project to explore the viability of storing DNA samples for genome sequencing, with the potential to revolutionise biodiversity research. There was even talk of using the DNA of a Quagga skin at a museum in Holland to recreate the quagga and other extinct species. Australia has also experienced the loss of some flagship species, including the famed Tasmanian Tiger, and so from Australia, I contacted Yolan to explore possibilities for collaboration with the Australian Museum, who were interested in the work being conducted by her and Paul.
I was very happy to note Yolan’s later appointment as EWT CEO, and her impressive stewardship of EWT since then has reinforced my views that EWT is one of the most effective ‘conservation in action’ organisations in the world, and certainly in Southern Africa.
It is funny how the wheel turns because, in 2020, I joined a webinar organised by Jacana Publishers that featured Yolan and Clive Walker. It was an absolute eye and ear-opener to learn just how much this organisation has achieved over the years and continues to achieve today, and I seem to recall Yolan having used words to the effect that she dreams of a day when there will be no need for an EWT, but sadly, I can’t see that happening. EWT will and must continue to perform its vital role in line with its vision of “a world in which both humans and wildlife prosper in harmony with nature.”
Following that webinar, I have volunteered to assist EWT in Australia and New Zealand to help it to achieve this vision. In addition, I have decided to leave a bequest to the EWT because I believe it is the most effective conservation organisation in Southern Africa, with measurable successes in both human and animal terms. I believe that it behoves all who support the EWT’s vision and mission to do everything possible to help it to succeed, both in our lifetime and beyond, and that is what I am doing!
Rob Schneider, 2021
In the spring, a tree will be planted in Rob’s honour as the first in our Forever Forest. A tree will be added for each person who leaves a bequest to the EWT to acknowledge that their legacies will live on through the EWT’s conservation work.
If you too yearn for a better future for your children, leave a Legacy for Life by remembering the EWT in your will, and help us secure the health of our planet and its wildlife beyond your lifetime.
All bequests made to the EWT create legacies for life that are immeasurable and remembered through the survival of our endangered species and spaces.
Dr Jeanne Tarrant, EWT’s Threatened Amphibian Programme Manager, jeannet@ewt.org.za
Background
South Africa (including Lesotho and eSwatini) has 135 frog (anuran) species, represented by 12 families, with over a third of the diversity within one family, the Pyxicephalidae. Over half of these species (54%) are endemic to the region, i.e. they don’t occur anywhere else in the world. Forty-four species (33%) fall into the IUCN threatened categories or where we don’t have enough data to assess them. While we have a fairly good understanding of the status of our Threatened frog species (assessed in 2010 and again in 2016), an assessment of our Least Concern species has not been published since 2004. Several new species have also since been described, which is very exciting, but these have not yet assessed for their threat status.
Species data
Since 2004 there has also been a massive increase in contributions of wildlife records by the public through online platforms such as iNaturalist, iSpot, and even Facebook. The collation of these ‘citizen science’ records contributeS significantly to improving our knowledge of species distribution. Accurate inferred distribution maps will be developed by consolidating these records, plus all of those existing in museum collections and private collections. These updated distribution maps are crucial for informing where and for which species conservation efforts need to be directed.
Find your Frog Prince(ss) Campaign
It is important that the public become involved in such projects and that citizen science records are used meaningfully. To this end, we launched an iNaturalist project that ran during March 2021 to feed into the thousands of records that already exist on this platform, and that will all be used to update the Atlas. One of this project’s goals is to inspire the next generation of frog biologists and conservationists to continue the very necessary work of conserving these species and their habitats well into the future to benefit people’s health and the planet.
To date, we received 400 observations of 48 species from 60 observers across the country
Bradley Gibbons, EWT African Crane Conservation Programme, bradleyg@ewt.org.zaIf you think about water, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it drinking water or having a shower or perhaps washing clothes? Imagine not being able to do any of these things – a world without water. That is simply impossible to comprehend. LIFE depends on water.
When some people are asked, “where does water come from?”, often the answer is “from a tap” or these days “from a bottle”. For many city dwellers, this may seem a logical answer, but many thousands of people living in rural areas must walk, sometimes many kilometres, to the closest river or stream to do their washing and take buckets filled with water back to their homes. They are very aware of the value of water, of its source, and the consequences of a river running dry.
It is probably a little-known fact that mountains, approximately 10% of the country’s land area, supply water to about half of the country. These mountains are the “water factories” that feed their precious “blue gold” into rivers such as the Vaal, which carries it through the country to be syphoned off to supply towns and cities such as Johannesburg.
An example of a massive “water factory” is the Eastern Great Escarpment region found in north western KwaZulu-Natal and north eastern Free State that forms an important part of the Thukela and Vaal Rivers catchments. A water source area such as this one needs to be protected at all costs, not only for the supply of water for future generations but also for its biodiversity value. If these mountains are compromised in any way due to unsustainable developments or habitat degradation, there are massive impacts on the supply of fresh, clean water to many thousands of people.
The Endangered Wildlife Trust is engaging with landowners in the Eastern Greater Escarpment to get their commitment to conserving their farms through biodiversity stewardship, whereby their farms are formally proclaimed as Protected Environments or private Nature Reserves, depending on the biodiversity value of the farm. By doing so, farmers will help safeguard these water sources into the future. A classic example of a Biodiversity Stewardship site is the uMsonti Nature Reserve proclaimed in May 2019, located south-west of Newcastle in the region formally known as ‘Holkrans’. Not only does this site safeguard the forest patches but also protects the source of the water for the Thirsti water bottling plant.
Please make use of water-saving tips to reduce your water usage and contribute in any way you can to the protection of the mountains and catchment areas that supply the water critical to our sustainability and continued quality of life in this semi-arid country.
Yolan Friedmann, EWT CEO
yolanf@ewt.org.za As I write this, our country has moved to lockdown level one and hopefully, with that, a return to some kind of normal life for millions of South Africans as they struggle to rebuild their lives and businesses from the wreckage of the past 12 months and mourn the loss of what can never be recovered or rebuilt. What the ‘new normal’ will be is anyone’s guess, and no-one seems to want to predict life beyond the next 30 days anymore. What 12 months have done to change our world and ourselves! A year ago, human beings around the world were anxiously debating the possibility of the “Wuhan virus” ever reaching our various shores or alternatively, were bracing for millions of deaths along the lines of the Spanish Flu, whilst just as many were pretending that life would never change so why worry?
But life DID change; let’s recount just some of the ways: In just 12 months, humans the world over have witnessed complete and total economic shutdown; buried family members and friends; lost businesses and jobs, created new ones online; seen corporate giants like MSC Cruises and Victoria Secret crash whilst Zoom shares skyrocketed; learned a new language that included words like “pivot”, “unmute” and “lockdown”; we all learned to wear earphones and masks, some more stylishly than others. And some of us not, just as a political statement. COVID turned us into pandemic denialists, anti/pro-vaxers, statisticians, fake news mongers, PPE tenderpreneuers, homeschoolers, beggars, thieves, heroes, medical experts, ginger horticulturalists, cultural bigots, and social connectors, all online, of course. Essential permits were issued, and homebrew recipes were exchanged. We lambasted rules that made no sense whilst we fed an insatiable black market that grew on the side. Beachgoers became criminals, and the skies became quiet with the absence of air traffic. Our conversations transformed in 12 months from blaming China to blaming Bill Gates. We admired Sweden, and we all know more about herd immunity than our GP does. It’s a crazy world for sure, and I cannot imagine anymore what the next 12 months will bring.
But here’s the thing: all of this has only affected the human species and the crazy, artificial world that we have built for ourselves, under the guise of development and civilisation. For all the madness in our world, Mother Nature continued to pass the passage of time with very little interruption or disorder. Lions continued to hunt their prey, Southern Right Wales went south to Antarctica, and tadpoles grew from eggs into frogs, all in the perfect order of things. Rain fell on the savannahs and prairies and night stars shone (more brightly perhaps) as they have for millennia. Humans believe that our world is tough and robust and built to last, whilst in fact, the more we construct a civilisation that is removed from nature, the more vulnerable we become. We rely on governments to give us food grants and supply us with water, to remove our effluent and educate our children. We rely on businesses to feed our families, and we need strangers who may not even exist to tell us the ‘truth’. We value paper with presidents’ heads printed on it above compassion and equality, and we demean those who tell us otherwise. And all the while, we believe we have dominion over the Earth and must control everything that lives on it – whether they need us or not. It is a strange world, isn’t it, and we are a very strange species.
I hope that some people have at least learned some important things this past year. It may not be the politicians or big business, and it probably won’t even be those we most trust to lead us in times just like these. It will probably be those we write off as weird or different, or perhaps even a vegan or two. But maybe some people took note of how much better and safer and healthier our lives would be, and how more predictable our future could be if we took a few steps backwards and were a little less ‘civilised’ and a little more ‘back to nature’. I, for one, hope that the next 12 months take us back a little if it means creating a healthy planet and an equitable world that values and sustains the diversity of all life. And, as this is the Vison of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, we believe that this is the only future that we should be working towards in the 12 months to come. Either way, we will be with you on this journey as we learn from nature the most important survival lessons we will ever need.
Here’s to the 2021 ride.
Yolan Friedmann
CEO
Matt Pretorius, Wildlife and Energy Senior Field Officer and RPAS pilot, mattp@ewt.org.za Whether used as toys or tools, drones are no longer a novelty. Coupled with advances in artificial intelligence (AI), drones now have a role to play in most industries, and the scope of our imagination is the only limitation. Drones deliver much-needed medicine to remote communities; scan compromised infrastructure for survivors during emergency disaster response; facilitate smart agriculture; and drop small explosives for the controlled triggering of avalanches, as just a few examples. Of course, there are more sinister potential uses for drones, from spying on your neighbour to so-called ‘slaughterbots’ – terrifying autonomous microdrone assassins with Artificial Intelligence for facial recognition. The latter may sound far-fetched; however, the line between science and science fiction may not be so cut-and-dry when it comes to drones.
Imagine what this technology could mean for conservation? Well, in truth, it has already shaped the future of our industry. Drones have been used in various scientific studies, from detecting rare animals and counting colony-nesting birds to mapping habitats and creating 3D scans of trees. The main practical advantage of a drone is its ability to go places that humans and their traditional modes of transport can’t, and the most significant benefit is that it can safely perform the same tasks by eliminating the need for people to get into dangerous situations. For people working in conservation, these benefits apply not only to airborne activities but also to those conducted in places that are hazardous for humans.
Perhaps one of the best recent examples came in early 2020 when an Endangered Griffon Vulture was killed when she collided with a power line in Israel. Conservationists monitoring the chick she had been rearing needed to find a safe way of feeding it in its mountain top nest, which was completely inaccessible on the cliff face. With the help of a technology start-up and the military, a ‘mama drone’ was deployed to deliver food to the chick, effectively rearing it until it fledged successfully. While the benefit of using the drone was significant in terms of human safety, the project ticked another box: eliminating the need to take the bird out of its natural environment to save it.
But how do wild animals respond to these flying intruders? Is it ethical to use a drone to get close to an animal when it results in a stress response? Perhaps the better question is whether using a drone is less or more detrimental to the animal than current/traditional methods. These questions must be considered before undertaking any new conservation project using drone technology.
In South Africa, drone systems are formally known as remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). Realising the variety of use cases for RPAS in conservation, the Endangered Wildlife Trust set out to become a legal drone operator in South Africa in 2017. The non-profit, corporate, and commercial use of drones is regulated by the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA), and organisations looking to operate within the legal framework enforced by the SACAA must obtain an RPAS Operating Certificate (ROC). Getting an ROC is quite onerous in terms of the various licences, registrations, and certifications an organisation must acquire – so much so that, unfortunately, many drone pilots are put off by this process and choose to operate illegally. The long road to obtaining an ROC culminates in a base inspection and a demonstration of operational competency. We were delighted to have passed ours in December 2020 and received our ROC in January 2021 (ROC # G1397D). An ROC holder can only operate within its operational specification, which defines the general parameters of when, where, and how it can operate its RPAS. In addition to this, a letter of intent to the SACAA, the first step of the ROC process, further specifies the activities and services a ROC holder can provide. Thus, when we started the ROC process in 2017, we had to think very carefully about all the possible applications that would fit our mandate as a conservation organisation and the uses for RPAS that would benefit the EWT in general. In the end, we opted to keep the services listed on our letter of intent broad enough to encompass a wide variety of conservation activities:
We were pleased to have the opportunity to put our tech to good use in January when we provided aerial imagery support to the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD) for the continuous monitoring of a Hippopotamus seen moving in and around residential areas in northern Johannesburg. The EWT worked with the conservation authorities to locate and monitor the Hippo’s movements to ensure that it made its way to less populated areas safely, without coming into conflict with the area’s residents.
Should you require the services of the EWT’s drone unit for any of the activities listed above, please get in contact with our RPAS Operations Manager, Lourens Leeuwner (lourensl@ewt.org.za). Our RPAS are always ready to take flight for conservation.
Dr Joseph Mwangi (josephm@ewt.org.za), Christie Craig (christiec@ewt.org.za), and Dr Lara Jordan (laraj@ewt.org.za), EWT’s African Crane Conservation Programme
The African Crane Conservation Programme focuses on conservation outcomes that align with scientific information and best practice. We pursue measurable conservation actions, one of which is the ringing of cranes. When ringed cranes are reobserved, we record their GPS point, habitat use, social grouping, and behaviour. This information collated over several years helps us to understand the populations we conserve on a deeper level: how many of the crane survive, how the population changes over time, their seasonal movements, and what the major threats are to populations. These nuggets of knowledge support further conservation action focused on addressing the causes of population declines.
One of the longest standing ringing programs is that of the Wattled Cranes within the Drakensberg. The ringing program started in 1986 and continues today with, on average, ten chicks ringed each year, and approximately 60 nests monitored each season. This involves intense on the ground surveys with efforts boosted by the annual aerial survey conducted by the EWT and the Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, the provincial conservation authority. Supportive landowners, farmers, and enthusiasts assist by recording resighting incidents through the Survey 123 phone app, email, or WhatsApp. This kind of community support provides vital information and has enabled us to determine survival rates of Wattled Cranes on the nest after fledging. Over the long-term, this enables us to monitor the movement, habitat, and how the species uses the landscape. This helps us pre-empt risks and assess threats that may affect the population, such as powerline collisions or land-use changes. This information, combined with nine satellite tracking units, has created focal points to target specific conservation action. This is vital to ensure the sustainable range expansion of the species.
Christie Craig is also studying Blue Cranes in the Western Cape by fitting the birds with rings and satellite trackers. The colour rings on their legs allow us to recognise a crane with a tracker when in the field and record our observations of the specific crane’s behaviour to understand their movements, e.g. when they are breeding. The satellite trackers give us very detailed movement data to see where and how Blue Cranes are moving, and this data can be used in myriad ways to inform conservation strategy. Our main aim with this data collection is to look at how and when Blue Cranes are flying to better understand how their flight patterns put them at risk of colliding with powerlines. Powerline collisions are one of the main threats to the species, and being able to understand collision risk informs mitigation efforts.
We were therefore excited to launch our Grey Crowned Crane ringing project in Kenya, which came hot on the heels of an agreement on country colour codes for coordinated Grey Crowned Crane ringing with other stakeholders working on cranes in East Africa. For the first time, we will be able to monitor chicks past the fledging stage, something we have not previously managed to do in East Africa. So far, 20 chicks have successfully been rung and fledged for the 2020/2021 breeding season. To supplement our efforts in sighting the ringed cranes, we will train and equip 30 community Crane Custodians who will assist in reporting any sightings of ringed chicks. Through these reports, we hope to better understand cranes’ dispersal from their breeding sites and map out key areas for cranes outside the breeding season.
