BIRD RINGING AT THANDA SAFARI - Out and About BIRD RINGING AT THANDA SAFARI BIRD RINGING AT THANDA SAFARI.
Back in the day, birdwatching was assigned to aging twitchers in beat up old cars in game reserves with binoculars around their necks and stickers on their bumpers reading something along the lines of bird watching please pass. Fast forward a few decades and you now have a special name for travelling to spot birds avitourism which is apparently one of the fastest growing segments of nature tourism in the world.
That was pre-Covid, of course.
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However, rather than simply disrupting another promising opportunity within the hospitality space, lockdown actually may have helped it take flight by getting more people watching birds both from their back yards and nearby nature spots.
As things return to a new normal and researchers tell us that therell be a greater demand for more authentic experiences, chances are that bird watching will become increasingly trendy.
THE BIRDING BUSINESS.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was taking opportunities offered by birders so seriously that, in 2009, it commissioned the Avitourism in South Africa research study.
The report that was released in 2010 estimated that around three million trips were undertaken each year, specifically for birding purposes.
The report put the total size of South Africas avitourism market at between 21 000 and 40 000 avitourists annually.
Of these, between 13 000 and 24 000 are locals.
The DTI noted that avitourists spent an estimated R927 million to R1,725 billion per year.
Domestic avitourists fork out between R482 million and R890 million annually.
According to the report, although domestic avitourism represented a major untapped market, foreign avitourists were an even more important area for future growth.
Even then, the size of the international avitourism market was between 8 000 and 16 000 avitourists per year with an estimated spend of between R309 million and R618 million.
To wrap up, avitourisms potential contribution to GDP was thought to be in the range of R1,205 billion to R2,243 billion annually.
The DTI may have recognised that South Africa has attractive core birding assets compared to competitor destinations particularly when it came to diversity, endemism and rarity but it also noted that insufficient data and a lack of co-ordinated industrywide planning for future development made it difficult to develop a targeted strategy to grow this sector.
RINGING UP OPPORTUNITIES FOR BIRD LOVERS.
Instead of waiting for further progress, private reserves such as KZNs Thanda Safari have decided to bring the birdwatchers out from behind the bushes by not only offering well curated bird watching expeditions but also roping in tourists to help with the gathering of data.
They will be hosting a bird ringing weekend under the watchful eye of bird conservationist James Rawdon from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 October 2021.
Rawdon, who originally studied biology and worked for many years in the South African and Botswana bush has always been involved in nature and conservation and had a keen interest in birds.
He pursued bird ringing as a hobby and obtained his bird-ringing license in 2012.
He has been ringing birds and sharing his passion for birds at various sites in and around KwaZulu-Natal ever since.
Bird ringing allows you to see the birds up close and it provides a wonderful opportunity to teach children and adults about birds, conservation and the preservation of their natural resources, he explains.
Rawdon believes that Thanda Safari, a 5-star private game reserve set in an ancient landscape in the northern reaches of Zululand, KwaZulu Natal where the Great Rift Valley meets the Lebombo Mountains, offers the perfect environment for getting up close and personal with birds.
It is not only home to the Big 5 but also to a plethora of birds.
WHAT IS BIRD RINGING?
The fitting of birds with coded leg bands, according to BirdLife South Africa which believes that bird ringing is a valuable scientific tool that can provide essential information for conservation.
Bird ringing and related marking techniques, including colour-rings, data loggers, radio and satellite transmitters, allow individual wild birds to identified and to be followed in space and time.
This can provide information of importance to the conservation of species and their key habitats through expansion of our understanding of their broad- and fine-scale movements, survival, ecology and behaviour which.
would otherwise not be obtained without marked individuals, the organisation states in its positioning statement on the subject.
The process itself falls under the South African Bird Ringing Unit (SAFRING) at the University of Cape Town and involves far more than simply adding a bit of birdie bling.
Each bird that is caught has to be weighed and measured before a ring is fitted.
Statistics that must be recorded include the estimated age, the degree of moult, and the measurements of the bill and important wing feathers.
Comparisons when birds are recaptured or when rings are recovered have proved invaluable.