Southern Ground-hornbills are incredibly difficult to census, as they naturally occur at low densities, with a single-family group using on average 100km2. This is needed for long-term data on the status of ground-hornbills, their distribution and threats, and to assess trends in populations and the efficacy of interventions.
Monitor
One of the primary responsibilities of the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project is to monitor the national population of Southern Ground-hornbills.
This is done in collaboration with a network of recruited citizen scientists from across the range. We use a simple but logical monitoring system that works on four-year cycles. This way we will be able to assess if the population is still declining to “Critically Endangered”, if it has stabilised, or if conservation efforts are leading to population recovery. This in turn guides our conservation focus, allowing us to target areas where the population is most endangered so that we can target our resources strategically, and thus make the most conservation progress. Most importantly, it allows us to monitor areas that may not normally be assessed through other forums such as bird atlassing, park management, or birding trip reports.
We have a dedicated staff member collating all of the data so rest assured every record you send us is used.
Censusing takes place using a grid system at the scale of pentads (five minutes of latitude by five minutes of longitude – i.e. squares with sides of roughly 9 km, one-ninth the size of quarter-degree grid cells). The use of monitoring within pentads was adopted by the South African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2) in 2007 and is highly suitable for monitoring Southern Ground-hornbills as these are a proxy for a single Southern Ground-hornbill territory. As ground-hornbills are residents, and have maintained these territories for decades, we are capable of more accurately monitoring presence for the species. So, every record is priceless, and ultimately, we need to ensure that every pentad within the range is well represented and reported at least once annually as this will allow us to determine if a territorial group has simply not been sighted for a year, or if the group is no longer around, and if Southern Ground-Hornbill populated areas are declining and how and why are they declining. We collate data from SABAP 2 and BirdLasser and emails or phone calls that come through but this is not enough.
We cannot achieve full coverage without your help.
