Protecting endangered Grass Owls in Kyalami

The Greater Kyalami Conservancy (Gekco) and Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) recently teamed up to conduct more thorough research to provide specialist input and support for the preservation and restoration of suitable habitat in the area.

Efforts in this regard paid off when the two organisations’ African Grass Owl Research poster was accepted and displayed at the 8th Oppenheimer De Beers Group Research Conference last week.

Tyrone Mckendry said, “It was fantastic to share our work with such a vast array of scientists and conservationists alike. Years of hard work and dedication have gone into this work to try and conserve these amazing birds in Kyalami. Sadly, over the last couple of years, we have seen a serious decline in the active nesting sites in the conservancy. This is due to several negative impacts related to urbanisation, especially veld fires.”

The Grass Owls are habitat specialists and the habitat that they require is limited in a peri-urban area like Kyalami. So when a fire burns through one of these habitats it takes several years for it to become tall and dense enough for the owls to nest in again, Mckendry added.

“This means that our work is more important than it has ever been and we are hoping for as much help and support as possible. If we can raise sufficient funds to purchase better monitoring equipment such as camera traps and GPS tracking devices we can gain a better understanding of how the owls move and survive in the area, which will help us to protect them.”

Details: If you would like to find out more about how you can help, fund and support the African Grass Owl research project, please contact Tyrone Mckendry (tyrone.mckendry@gmail.com) or Anton van Niekerk (secretary@gekco.co.za).

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