The Red List: Southern Ground Hornbill

The charismatic Southern Ground-Hornbill is a bird that many people already know well. They are culturally important as the 'thunder' or 'rain' birds and are a flagship species for the savannah biome. At present, Southern Ground-Hornbills are considered within South Africa as 'Endangered', with their numbers outside of formally protected areas still declining. It is likely that the birds will soon meet the IUCN Red Data List Criteria as being 'Critically Endangered' in South Africa. It's estimated that only 1500 Ground-Hornbills are left in South Africa, of which half are safe within the protected areas. This means there are only an estimated 417 breeding groups in the whole of South Africa, data shows that, on average, only one chick is raised to adulthood every 9 years. The reasons for their decline are predominantly loss of habitat to croplands, bush-encroachment, overgrazing and plantations, loss of nesting trees, secondary poisoning and electrocution.