I gave this online talk to the BirdLife Overberg club on 7 April. In it you will hear me speaking about BirdLife South Africa’s conservation work on the species and some of the incredible success we have achieved in protecting these birds from electrocution. Please leave your comments and questions below. Enjoy!
But thanks so much everyone for knocking hi – was short notice and but here we can bring in a bit of entertainment – your lock down I think this is the first spirit club talk that I've given in slippers so I hope everyone's comfortable at home I'm just gonna meet everybody's microphones so that we don't have any interruptions but at the end of.
It into the presentation I will provide time for you guys to be able to ask questions and great okay so I put a fine title slide there I'm sure some of you have chance to read that so today we're gonna miss the presentation and just to give you a bit of background on your IR so I started real quickly like that in 2017 I started off as an intern I just.
Completed my PhD and was looking for some experience in the mid conservation world I'm actually a civilian ecologist by training so I worked on savanna trees for my PhD and looking at how you use come on animals but I've always been a passionate bird watcher I hope it was that – when I'd really enjoy a good life.
I would be able to marry the visits to do sort of parts of my life and bring my and ecology knowledge to being able to save South Africa's periods and so I sit here today how many come through the regs is very life as an intern and then he wrapped it a project manager I did some of the work I'm going to show you this evening and I hi I said Jamie made.
This yeah I have not taken the reins of all of our turtle species work so I'm hitting up a landscape conservation program those of you go familiar with pretty mindful probably know that we didn't have an ask a conservation program this is a brand-new program and started on in January this year and we basically combined form a terrestrial.
Bird conservation program would be happy any program so we're taking our sights on our species work and combine the two to have much more effective and synergistic projects and sort of conservation modus operandi you so I'm specific added snake eagles the beauty of being in the virtual world is that I'm about to.
Transport all of you to my lands in the land and hopefully get you outside of the four walls that you're so without any further ado let's get going okay so just some of you that are on the line you might not know what their life is or what we do really briefly and we have it only India and South Africa that is concretely focused on conservation and.
Hard ferrites and they have a text and we do this through using scientific administer programs and they're also making sure that people are encouraged to enjoy nature so our entire purpose in South Africa is to make sure that we preserve our birds their natural habitats and very much as we go out there and enjoy those things and we're.
Kind of a wonderful partnership there is called the birdlife international partnership there are over 120 country partners and together we make up the biggest conservation partnership in the world and what's really great about being part of this partnership is that all the work that we do here has very nice of effort head is really.
Translatable through our partnership networks and that way we can have a more regional impact created like Africa partnership as well as the good life international partnership and we can teach as well as receive lessons from other partners around the world and herky together strengthen on conservation of course now.
The first preventive program which are used to it for when I did this other man is taking a work was a sort of diet branch of the preventing extinctions program which is a very much international concept and their main aim of this program and is to stop author can be as easy as furthering state now in 2015 we have South African produced.
Me it started read a book for birds this was a really big milestone in terms of understanding the conservation landscape of our own species and we remedied for any religious book busy negotiating with Islam to hopefully find 20/20 realistic or my fingers across dust will and won't be managed that off and but essentially what we.
Learned out of this 2015 exercise was that oh hundred and eighty-two on treatment species and South African bird species we're looking at a quarter of our Raptor species falling into the interim categories now when I talk about tracking categories we're talking about the extension scale so in the IUCN which is the International Union for the.
Conservation of Nature has a scale that is essentially a barometer for understanding how likely is easiest to go extinct now the species which fall into this critically endangered category are ones which are the most likely to go extinct in the near future and unfortunately in South Africa we're sitting as six critically endangered.
Raptors four of those are vulture species and hooded vulture white head culture the white hated vulture and then we've also got two Raptors so your types of Altman which isn't the top left of those very perhaps and then the southern maddening evil now the sudden man instinct you'll is a beautiful cryptic first winning rata it.
Isn't a crystal forests of northern kwazulu-natal and as you can see in this photograph here it provides make me on reptiles and amphibians sports resource approximately a tenth of the prey that it takes is reptiles and amphibians and you can see the one on the top lip thing as Minds taken is close and this is one of the big species of snake that these.
Birds prey on the one in the middle of a of the bigger picture is eating a frog and then we'll sit for diamond and eat em pipiens when they are struggling to find snakes now on these beautiful birds have a variety of different provisions and I was just technology Chittenden for I'm providing me with these images some amazing grip on the species over.
The years and has collected some of the early known data in terms of a peerage how what do you see in the top left of your screen is a each full fixture third when these been attached they broke into these distributors that have that beautiful white image with a bit of pale Brown skipping and dark wings in this second air they go from Kiki dog so you.
Can see there that really has various old firing on its chest and then the great on its wings is just starting to come through from there they melt into their seven dollar image you can see a slightly scruffy a version of and the beautiful adults that we bought and those have adult birds bringing all of Ahriman to their chests and then.
Ultimately become a top birds now we don't know what the exact time frame is that these birds move from their second image element estimation is between three to five years and unfortunately because they're so secretive a difficult era we aren't able to nail that down just yet that hokey Evers project extends and we'll be able to to get an.
Answer to that now this is the beautiful crystal first and grassland hog northern president until you can see the map at the top right there that really couldn't deliver and where the arrow is pointing is our ocean crystal vault now for those of you who do not have an ecology background is a quick apology or 101 South Africa's broken up into several.
Different irons a biome is simply an area that is quantified by the vegetation that dominates so it'll be familiar with the term the grasslands or the savanna Ruslan is obviously dominated by process your savannas are a mix of trees and grass and then of course we've got the in the other is depression coastal not now a lot of this.
Coastal manse has these beautiful and coastal forests along those big dunes as you can see on there in today and they are backed up by these shallow brass and earrings now sudden parrot snake giggles okay on this sort of ecotone what they did is they breed and roost inside there is farts and it no come out and had to along the engines and if you.
Had look big in these pictures here you can see a very sting in the forest during a piece of the day as well as a breeding pair of such a fantasy heels and that's just no chair these two images are some of the very documents and images of readings and abandoned State Eagles in southern Africa and we know full nest sites in South Africa and.
There's a couple ones in February there'd be no offense in terms of understanding the Brio ecology of the species we know they're very visible and I'm going to introduce you to our new Raptors and large Churchill foods project manager things on it will hopefully be helping us answer some of these questions as we move forward and.
Try and understand the species in the pizza so that we can improve its conservation when they're not roosting and breeding inside these big forests so see these benefits or niches of the coastal forests so you can see this buried pitch flow on the trap for watching blokes they have an extremely good eyesight and they will watch for.
Movement below them on a snake or lizard or frog and they will then drop down and eat it so they own in the morning those of you had the opportunity to go look around goldenseal and maybe see means variance in the bright morning sun that is one of the best times to try and with the species to enter sit there are patient.
Perch hunters and you'll spot them high up on a snag and loved eclipses trees unfortunately they also love the Hydra which put a little pulse that they can pitch on and wishful crates but we'll touch on that a little bit later once they spot the prey running past they will then dive down and grab it as you can see the settled very dispatching was.
Staying very pretty getting rid of that hate making sure that and they will then proceed to eat the rest of the body of the state really tempted snake-catching rectus my free look at the global distribution of the species you'll see the other creeping up the eastern side of the African continent they are really restricted.
Species when it comes to the types of habitats that they are able to occupy so you'll see you down on the bottom near South Africa and southern resin beef there's a little sliver they I mean from northern Mozambique stretching up through East Africa and finishing up in southern Somalia this is where you are likely to find these berries and.
Unfortunately if we look at the global m iu c n rapist stepping they are currently estimated to have fewer than 2000 periods I want to draw your attention to the fact that this assessment was done in 2004 that is approximately 15 odd years ago and a lot has changed in Africa since then we've seen a large scale of deforestation and.
Extension of development throughout that Nissan corridor and then is putting pressure on these birds so the population estimate of six hundred and seventeen thousand has likely changed quite a bit closer to home in South Africa our more recent instrument and arrest rates that both of these are just instruments I'll speak to them a little.
Bit later we are looking at around forty to fifty mature individual birds now something that's a must restore very project knowledge it is whether we can scientifically and accurately quantify just how many birds we have live chat in South Africa but as it stands on current instruments are that we have fifty which is extremely concerning when they're.
Trying to consider the species but the reality is as I said these are just instruments and there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot of research to be done in order to back up these robust population estimates so watch this space and I hope you can check to you another than an ero so is time with the expecting or a fine population.
Instrument and hopefully one that tells us like the little positive story I mentioned the expansion of developments across Africa what you see here is a estimate from a group led by essa Henson and he's showing that from 2001 to 2018 everywhere you see pink on this map is an area where parts has been reduced in South Africa so if we go to.
Look at the southern man it's named Eagles distribution you can see large twigs particularly through a razor meat into Tanzania when a first loss has occurred within a Southern Man it's an eagle's range and this is a little bit what it looks like so you know the familiar beautiful coastal first Samoan to the event and the picture on the.
Right of your screen is what modern-day origins they hate currently looks like I took this photograph standing in insulating nature reserve which is one of the few remaining protected areas that has carried any form of crystal Christ and cross them in that entire northern zoo – danga region so how does it have transformation is the serious.
Trick for the species and we're working very hard to ensure that what little habitat does remain is secured now across northern Zealand and the whole look was an atoll what you see here is some of the habitat transformation that is taking place and a colleague of mine when I was still studying in VIPs today PhD but gave me ABS wrote a.
Transformation and across and posited until and what you see in that top lip map is every way that is in black isn't an area that has been transformed for human agriculture or human settlement some form of human activity so back in 1994 the dawn of democracy in South Africa we were sitting at around 73% natural habitat over southern Africa for.
President on my 2011 that introduced down to 53 percent and what I'd like you to notice is that the majority of this transformation has taken place along the coast which is prime habitat for southern barrens Bay people's whole colorful map you can see on the right-hand side of your screen is just highlighting some of the land use types.
That we find across for the natal you'll see them here this big weird shape in the vanilla is for those in national park and up on the right-hand side to Israelis humanity so with and Heritage Sites so those are two of the few remaining protected areas within the wooden post natal and then we have a few private nature is acts such as Penda and.
Teammate reserve as well protecting a few spots care if agree that you see in purple is a plantation of some form or another everything in rig is sugar cane I hold the other and peach are areas where human settlements have expanded so a great scene a transformative landscape in his northern posited Intel region and a lot of that is concentrated on foreign.
Cultures such as far as tree and agriculture unfortunately what this means is that all birds or southern matted snake bills are being pushed off the edge into you hopefully what would be an extinction and so back at 2015 a team led by Andrew Jenkins and David Hunt sit out in civilian was an Intel on behalf of birdhouses I forget to start.
Understanding the landscape that these other men instinct Eagles were trying to survive and so they could ago and it's an incredible networking and understanding some of the role in that fans game but the sort of base was sick for research projects to be launched and that's what's happened since then so between 16 dr. Shay McPherson was.
Hired as a full-time researcher on a sudden and it's taking all project train headed out into the region which is one of the strong strongholds for the species those of you don't know it and Tanzania is it's about two hours north of Durban and today amid some absolutely groundbreaking work on the species within him sin Z he did some incredible.
Monitoring and reading books to understand the street EP is a variance within this landscape of coastal forest and plantation that survives and Cinzia but one of the absolute key thing the chain was able to find was what the fourth of 99 taste of sentiment and eels here in South Africa and so if you go look at that image on the left side of.
Your screen the blue dots at his way Shane was sitting and the white circle is way the next was found Schanzer the birds flying in and you can see the vertical arrow pointing downwards that's a babe pitching on a stick very close to the nest and Shane managed to watch him fly in and swap over with the female if you look at the top of your screen is.
Perched on the nest now this was a groundbreaking discovery because up until this point we thought that some kind of Samuels were largely restricted to protected areas cases like nice amenities so we can reserve main variants all sizes and some of the gardens around this solution region we never before were detected there.
Viennese plantation landscapes and when Sharon handed the project over one of the key things that he wanted us to begin to was how many southern men it's the Eagles adapting to these sort of fake forested landscapes on a consistent with in the forestry Network and canon forestry neighborhood actually provides some form of an alternative had an.
Escape from these birds to persist in a changing world now when she headed the project over to me back in 2018 we have to start looking at a plan for this project and what I'm going to show you now it's sort of the overall project then but I read evena talked to two or three of these objectives as female so one of the first things we needed to.
Tell hospital is where are these periods and how I go about trying to understand that is by gathering a range of dates are from different citizen sciences scientists we're also connecting a whole set of magnets capable survey data and the whole thing to deploy telemetry devices unfortunately were meant to leave on the 18th of April to don't have.
To dance Melvin's independence first tracking devices let's hope it had another plans for us so as soon as we are free to move again we all have to be going down and fitting these Goods with tracking devices for the first time what we can do with all of this data it starts a text and things like yeah you can have ecological niche as well as.
Their distributions we've got very similar teammates and very life so that I may give you some incredible species loving and I'm going to show you some of them a little bit later but we can really start using them to understand where it should be focusing on conservation efforts on the ground in terms of trying to protect these birds.
The other thing we needed to look at was how many of these birds oddish and so in order to try and do that we stopped considering our simulator hopefully putting up some camera traps of NIST's when we ultimately try and find them thanks to our tracking data and also looking at potential threats what could be reducing.
The population outside of just how does that loss and so when you combine both of these things we can start to work with rural kids in the environment the likes of forestry as well as ISKCON potentially causing an interest and an institution straight to these guys but some of the infrastructure and the two things that are gonna talk to you about.
This evening logical each species distribution models that we've been developing as well as the traits analysis looking at the impact of transformer buses on southern man ankles and the potential of education risks that these devices purse to others in terms of answering this question of the way they are and what the possible.
Maximum extensive repairs could be throughout South Africa we started off by gathering as much citizen science data as we could we're very kindly offered access to the Africa routes a database we also collected very massive data points that people have clicked in over the last years and we collected all records from.
Either Andy Byrd as well as if you have a little matter is key information form and so with these different instrument citizen science and points that we can flicked we can start looking at where these birds are being seen and we can use that to form our modeling exercise now I just want to stress what you're saying yeah all of the records.
That have been clicked in quest 2000 when I'm interested currently in looking at where these birds we're starting we know that there had a big range contraction and we know that a lot of these birds and I no longer found where they used to be found and so what you're seeing here is essentially the modern-day reports from the last 20.
Years of data that we could connect the next thing we need to start doing is cleaning out the stasis so occasionally someone's love the bird in Cape Town when they were sitting on the couch because they remembered that they saw it and that TV is quite obviously it's not a realistic one we then remove it from the data and this is a process called.
Verification so we came out all of the data points and what we needed to do was in order to no bias our model we have to start eliminating some of the areas where we get high monitoring rates so somebody like hyssop medieval weapons we've many many people burn many people love the food be a very big cluster of data and then unfortunately.
Can skew our models if we're starting to see too many points like after one particular case so to try and get around that what we do is a process called verification and what that allows us to do is to take a random point and we space them at 3 kilometers apart because this is the estimated territory size of a sudden matted snake you'll and we can.
Then start to get in a spread to the realistic territories with other men and snake eels or I'm rolling close it in at all modest as an aside something we're looking into is that on this map we're sitting with around 93 territories of southern matted spanky goals now obviously not all territories will be occupied at the same time but hopefully.
Understanding which of these territories is active at when we can start to a dimensional realistic population estimate but that's some science for a time so we've got our little date today ready to go into the model but we're adding to start doing is understanding what environmental factors influence the son of man today people we start off.
With the whole array climate so you can look at things like your average annual temperature you're live in different temperatures in winter oh wait things gets and summer is a whole different category of where the types and common types of you start to build into these models the next day we add to this is topography so many times.
Stand things like animation select what by which direction the slope is facing that can have an impact as well as drainage and hydrology so where water is potentially flowing through an area and then we bring in the last layer of environmental variables which is your land cover data now this is things like command use so I showed you yeah we know.
Where the plantations are we know where the human settlements are we can also bring in things like soil type or tax and agriculture and you can start to use all of these to really hold an idea of what to sentiment is a people is choosing from its environment I'm not going to go into the complication of exactly how we do that in terms of the.
Next what you need to know is that an absolute broadest scale if we just look at the time of variables of sudden mountainscape equals we can already see everywhere in the dark blue is your sort of hot zone for the species we're already seeing a tendency for these birds to be located on the coastal areas of southern Africa so from a very broad.
Perspective just taking into account climate we know these birds like it hot and then I can't wait so that's why I'm northern city land it's a perfect place for them but we need to obviously take our models a little bit further and make them a little bit more informative for us so not every single aspect of these environmental airs is going to tell us.
Something valuable so in order to detox our models we get rid of some of the letters that don't really have an influence and then we can start painting an output that looks a little bit more like this now this is an extremely fine scale awkward model for sentiment in people's what you're seeing here is a 50 meter.
Resolution model for southern man's name Ebola habitat it hits you is a very clear sign of suitable ten moving upstream and southern Africa once again all of the really blue areas are very important sacks for these birds and every other thing green could still potentially hosts of many Eagles but it's not as optimal as some of the.
Little blue sites so if we dig deeper into this model what we find is that actually the absolute critical thing for these periods is that if we look at the minimum temperature of the coldest months they like habitats that have a minimum temperature of 11 degrees Celsius or higher these do not like it's being cold then.
Avoid areas where the temperatures drop the very limited resources they really like to be in a warm climates so that was a very strong contender and another big factor was obviously land cover they need those coastal forest type habitats or wooded habitats to be able to scribe now my claim urban plane is busy doing some credible modeling and Southern.
Africa and Africa as well and what you see here is Robins models which is slightly closer I'm scale so these are at a hundred metres not 50 metres but you can see once again for southern and it's the Eagles a very very hot zone so here everything that's in red is your best suitable.
Habitat and you can see Robins models lasting up that coastal thing and one of the great things about Romans model is it also builds in a climate change in and you can see that these birds have the potential into new supplements as tyrunt starts change and we came into a hostile world we've seen how pervert has changed the.
World we have no idea what's coming with time and change in 20 years so it's very positive to see that these birds could potentially stop providing that the heart attacks is made from it so from a consummation point of view we're really happy to see this potential and we've received word that there is a pair of brains that have established on the.
Border of the Eastern Cape southern wasn't at all so that speaking very much to these birds being able to move south will hopefully learn more about these birds moving southwards as we continue studying them now I mentioned the fire screen landscape and the potential for these alternative landscapes to provide.
A sudden event expand deals with suitable habitats and what you see here is somehow my mother comforts mother write-n-cite is just showing you with him as people first read ad escapes off and then once again on the next hand side I'll get teens their resolution models now something that is really important to have it okay is that these.
Are not coming up as greedy these are coming up as blue areas which means it is a high level of their suitability for seven minutes and eagles in these forestry landscapes and so we need to needed to go out and start to brown truth this concept and a 20-18 I hit it off with a very small team to go out and start doing a bit of grown.
Tree thing for seven vendors and people's specifically targeting these far as two baskets now this is the northern Sudan region and you can see Richard spinning wool around students in Xenia in the south and we may continue get these different plantation bucks we've got permission from money and techniques are going to do this work.
What are the other treks you can see other reach that we took we've targeted small natural pockets that sort of flow between these plantation landscapes and we worked along the bank pull back every five and five hundred meters to see if we could get a response for the southern man and snake eagle I'm just going to show you some of the photos from that.
Trip so this is our team I'm Caroline housewife crossover viewfinder here it was totally a European honey Buzzard a see if you would like to get about many visits she's the lady to contact and I'm a junior beta if he is one of the community perhaps is very life has ever produced he knows that northern see didn't region.
Better than anybody have an office he was absolutely phenomenal if your vitamin all those who do that very I need someone to show us I cannot recommend you and that's he really really was good and really helped us to locate these periods it's really tough I'm forested landscapes of course there's all kinds occupational hazards.
You gotta watch out for things like criminals when you're in industry these millions of your land regions thanks we had a lot of fun and we had some pretty good success finding these birds and I'm very cold I can't hear that don't think not sir okay oh no sorry but tell anybody it's a manual is quite.
Unique and sort of ever very very interesting cool and so some of the other interesting things that we came across in these forested landscapes is some really wonderful peaches out along you see Mona Lisa then see a Quebec or SP landscape we came across bufflers rhinos elephants and just about the entire Big Five.
Creasing through these plantation landscapes it's a bit over a winning mindset to come across their herd of buffalos inside these eucalyptus plantations but nevertheless they're in there and some really interesting variants to some better actors and you can see your everyday we have read any other book cuts undoubtedly the best.
Practice acts and we had other than our southern staples was this beautiful juvenile is for people and subsequently it has been another nest content in Rico monarchy forestry landscape sir it looks like politicians might be pretty good for some of our right to species there hold it so that's a less on that front I just to show you some of the incredible.
Species and diversity we came across most of the trip that we were here home down in order Zealand surveyed 22 pipettes and on those 22 pinheads we picked up 257 species the majority of which for a living case ended in these parts puppets and here's an immense old atresia of the diversity going on around these plantations that.
We haven't really been aware of previous and so that's very exciting to see and we heard that there's natural forest pockets that sort of stay away through these bars p+ my man came by a bar screen classes which they seem committed to do so that's very good news now on the son of Maddox maybe girlfriend we had some really exciting success what do.
You think here is the point of the plantation blocks so this is just outside of Bridget today what are the other squid will sorry other circles cases where we found at least one in front – son of Maddox and people's so here this is at least five confirmed territories of said amendments a Eagles in the heart of one of our plantation.
Bucks and that was an extremely exciting finding for us on the student and we're doing it quickly do extensive research to understand just how they're able to survive within his plantation I wanted to sue into the territory that's at the bottom left of your screen right now this is me sandy damn it borders on TV.
In Savannah River and wrestlers pass the insulating eight reserve which is in the pale of reading at the top of your screen and we're surveying in the monkey plantations which every day I'm you can see the whites circle in the center of your screen and we managed to find a pair of birds and then in the back of those plantations meaning punted.
Plantation landscape you can see one of the last remaining pockets of natural forest and these birds have managed to establish turkey in a there displaying beautiful rivers natural pocket parks and so there really are coming in there and they're petting along the edge of this first section using that new comes to urban landscape.
To hunt so it is definitely an adaptability immature other species that they were in previously aware of which is very very exciting so when we start looking at whether these birds are adapting there's a higher menu – yes there could be which is great and in terms of trying to further the conservation it really gives us a good.
Tool set and based away from to protect these birds going forward now one of the next steps that we need to look at is telemetry as I said we were hoping to go down on an hand fits tracking devices on these birds those of you who know your axes although there's not as other members may be on top racks as actually a European honey was approached I was.
Privileged enough to go and watch it intact and so hopefully you were going to do the same thing for southern mountains and eagles I'm in the near future and start to understand Nick behind the scale movements telemetry is a wonderful tool because we don't have to try and follow these birds into the forest to see.
Exactly where their whole how do you use a romance get those data points just get uploaded to an incident page and we can then access the data and understand exactly what that you without needing to be on the ground disturbing them so it's a great tool and we're looking really forward to getting that theatre student then I meant to mention some of the.
Districts to African writers but some of the key ones are the same recalling to habitat loss so that's who I'm agriculture and lobbying in particular but one of the other big dreams to our actors is that of energy and power line infrastructure now one of the reasons that we think these birds are able to survive in this part part Asian.
Landscape is because we actually created the coastal forest and grassland matrix that they are now missing from their natural habitats if you have a look at this plantation servitude we've collect beautiful poles with inspiration and hunt we were the first on the left and then these nice grassy ridges where they can.
Like users and frozen sex so now all we need to do is make sure that these novel landscapes are safe for our birds now if we have a look at these son of man it's Nate girls they absolutely love to perch on poles and things like electrical poles are really great pitching poles for them now there's two problems with this if the spirit catches a snake as.
You can see there and flies it with a snake to that pole if the snake touches that lag wire and then touches the bird who's pitched and based on top of that pole we have Kentucky Fried Chicken and that is a huge problem likewise when Rex's difficut they take to script a stream of PCs and that is a nice wet conductor of an interest team.
If that pcs happens to connect their to a that these birds can get it refuted on these poles we also have been same two images like this which really makes my blood run cold this is a 442 watts and electrical pylon and if that beam is a little bit further forward and touches a very intuitive you probably went to even find a convertible.
And straight into fiery coals so that is usually concerning for us but the real treacherous evil linking in between a hold of our landscapes and as settlements are these transformer boxes now what you see in the part of the neck of your screen is a young Southern Man snake you can see that pale white image he is a first year bird this is a very.
That is just lift his nesting sites he hasn't had a chance to breathe even really learning to the other hand sneaking home and he has unfortunately perched on top of a transformer box as you can see in our picture on the screen and he has touched one of the lab wires and unfortunately then face me electrocuted now these transformer boxes.
Are a big problem not just for rats lack of sediment as a people I was offered a pair of them and unfortunately given education thanks like monkeys and snakes if they suck from the first part of the box and then touch those highways and also get electrocuted so there are a big problem for our life we're going to use a.
Sub-account sneaky rulers and protection to reduce this threat now vitamix Heaney has an incident register so they've been collecting reports of southern man it's new people's being electrocuted over the years thus far they've been for electricians of southern and its name field since 2012 if I remember correctly so that's quite a high member when you.
Consider we're estimating a population of around 50 donors many of consuming the other problem with these first of landscapes is it's very difficult to recover caucuses off to something has been an excuses there are many scavengers around and they remove caucus is very pretty often in education is heaven so it may be grossly under.
Estimating the street for wasallam and it's named Eagles now using the distribution model that I showed you here I did some work in 2018 looking at the potential risk of an execution for these son of man extinct Eagles in the northern president until landscape and you can even put a bit of a strict matrix so what we did was we have put.
The transformer boxes wearing new that southern man's naked Eagles had been educated and you can see that there are two diamonds in fuchsia unfortunately one of those was responsible for came in two birds and then we had one African savannah and the North he can see little realizing bolts on your screen now what we did was we.
Connected any transformer box that fell within me I have 75460 high likelihood I'm son of an extinct egos being present so that is the actually prime optimal habitat for these birds where you gave back to theirs from high rate racing anything that fell within the 50% box was given an orange rating and anything outside the 25 students was given a.
Eurasian so still risky but not necessarily that risky to your automatic Spanky goals the other thing we did was pull the boxes of both in protected areas were also flagged and so earlier we then took all of that work and found that we were thinking had 21 absolutely pristine I'm threatening transformer boxes and.
Around a heavy rainfall or Pyrus transport of Isis to us under menace and people's I took this quick various computer where the African conference phylidia infrastructure ecology was happening in March 2019 and I was into your room full of ideologies scientists and industry players and let me eat to the people sitting in that room where it.
Hides eggs and his phone he grabbed me after the talk and saved We Need to Talk agency and it's gone so he microphone is very involved in trying to mitigate the impacts on wildlife despite the challenges of reducing power force they actually do care a lot about the environments and they've done some really incredible work through their.
Partnership with us as well as they partnership review team linking these two point of ships together it's from six forward and said we wrap it and do some work on these transformer boxes if you test for towards to tackle and we a little Richard with them with safety bonds to stop animals being able to touch them in live wires now what you.
Can see on the left-hand side of your screen is a transformer box where the jumper cables do not have any insulation on them if an animal is perched on that transformer box and touches one of those mine was there going to be an interview to them probably killed what they didn't do is they take the high insulating of them they cover the entire lab where I.
Cable and they prevent anything from being able to touch those live wires when they're interested these transformer buses in order to show you quite an incredible story mount it watch 2019 I represented my results at that conference as I showed you already i infiltrate to nineteen you I have meetings with a spark and then put it in.
At all operations unit to start discussing with allergic to mitigate excuse and education responsible boxes in july 2019 a few down to president all my main concern is farm executives to officially launch the southern magnets capable and education prevention project and in November 22 1980 retrofit saying 62.
Transformer bosses and bottom it's been ninety four of those have been retrofitted with protective measures so we have been able to nullify this electrocution rates across a wide swathe of critical so demand snake eel habitat and that is an incredible kudos to the people in my photographs either speaking it's come didn't need to step up and fix.
The straights as quickly as they did they're really – they created despite all the tenders they do face every agent step up and I'd like to acknowledge the mutant partnership which is a partnership that's being built and with and trust it's gonna be nice electric there it's been going since 2004 and they were sqv instrumental in helping us.
Cause this incredible conservation success I heard that will continue in spirit terrific all of those transformer buses and make sure that that entitled is just positive and it's taking us but all of our life throughout that moans ooh t9b to them simply have a look ahead you'll see that we have some other – gets too close I'm really make sure the.
Today a tree one that is absolutely high on our list following that will turkey deploy some counter traps on sort of reading events to try and understand what's going on with those tricks and then of course doing some monetary things of over on treating them of that model and really getting handle on our active territories of sudden mats in.
Heels and hopefully closing down that population estimates uncertainty we're hoping to launch the sooner that sneaky bubble breeding midday and I'm sure our X's and registers for its product manager to let you know and that's happening if anyone would like to make the trip out to Norman's video as I said we need to gather more signs a.
Beginning former population estimate we need to accurately delineate where they're suitable habitats or hands but spirits and make sure that it's being management puppy so that they can survive and of course we need to have a look at the durable Ramos status currently the species is listed as niet written which is the first category for.
Species now I'm sure if you have a look at all the science I produced three this evening you can agree in this piece you should at least be considered in anger diagonal platform now I've been mentioning our rector and lodged first open a project manager I'd like to introduce all of you to mr. Kyle.
Walker she will be taking over this project from me and I will be helping supervisor Murphy and cover some of the deep dark secrets of the Sunderbans in Google as well as some some about how to write two species at bay less we're really excited to have Colin board he's an extremely tense and read biologist whose passion is taken tonight when it.
Comes to exes and we are very very excited to see what he'll pretty severe cake up and go check with the old leaven in upcoming years and tell you a little bit more about some of you've been able to prove in upcoming months and years so that further do you I mean take knowledge many many organizations funders panas and the main I'm being you.
Know partnership we helped under lost of our work and as I mentioned in Iraq's Research Foundation very kindly of woodenness the Lizzie Bruin memorial grants carry out some positive a word and I talk to Troy Govinda mr. Reedy Creek as well as to Shane and JT from his car various form insulin getting messed and transform about spreading the.
Rock i'm cue to be very full to kitchen and in his little he provided a lot of inputs and information on the species bearing into this project and i'm really grateful to all of the other project managers you've been involved in this work prior to my arrival so much information from my side if any of you have any questions I'm going to ask that.
You just put up the little bit raise your hand and button if you're not sure where to find that it'll be under the participant list and you'll be able to ask me some questions if anyone has any questions thank you very much for this thing in please stay safe during these uncertain times Melissa yes thank you very much for a.
Great talk I just thought maybe you'd want to explain how you go about trapping these birds for the coming months how do we go about doing this so our reptile astraphobia photo implant is actually online when these birds are pitching in the waiting for prey to come along luckily 20% of their diet doesn't.
Necessarily have to be reptile so I don't need my snake handling skills but what we'll be doing is using what is called an unchecked Reed trap so that is a big cage when we stall and one or two you mice they're very safe inside of a cage but on top of the cage there are a whole lot of nooses where the food can dive onto the mice or these tried to.
Dive onto the mice i''m italy get cold in those maurices and the bottom of the cage has a nice heavy weights and that will then prevent the bird from being able to fly away and we will be hiding nearby and run out and grab it and then we will process it and what we do is we take all the measurements required for a typical separate training exercise so.
Things like weights wing wings and tosses lean headling and we didn't fit the bird with a silver ring and you fitted with a small backpack so this has a harness that goes around the moon buggy the device goes on its back and exactly like the small school backpack and that bird is enabled to fly around without too much interference from that.
Little device and provide us with really important data on movements thank you Alex thanks Carly good question any other questions I just I mean said well order it I see we've got some written questions as a lot it's going to tackle some of those so I don't always said them if the 11 degrees Celsius cut off but habitat.
Links to reptile activity and riptile so Dominic when it gets too cold and thanks Helen on that personal great question we do think that this might be influencing them so obviously they need to be somewhere where it's warm and there's potential snake prey available throughout the earth and as well as front prey so snakes and frogs require.
Warm and wet and so definitely that's living degree cattle could very much feelings to snakes being able to move around that's a good question listen Tom can you hear me yes I can hear you answer great and we were muted so you didn't hear you couldn't hear me any lines applause with the installation of those.
Transformer boxes we've been I sold a lot about that in the low felt with a ground horn ball and it's wonderful that that is comes coming to the party like that and I would just like to really thank you for for marvelous talk I think it's it's new ground for us and and in the times that we're living in I think this really has fantastic potential.
People on board and I hope that in the future we can get more of our members to come on board with talks like this because it's really exciting absolutely and thanks so much for the opportunity and very nice electric is actually in the process of launching a series like this where we'll get some of my team members to give talks like this.
And low verbal info about some of the way that we're doing when this is ooh careful so hopefully you guys will be those on thank you so much opportunity to share this work with you guys the training is appreciated is there any it would like some to put some questions forward see someone's just ask them it's.
Very important it will be available and I'll post it on to my YouTube account and I'll then share the link with Antony as someone's also asking about the price of the trackers so units that we use and pushes the army'll in Europe and before Koba 93 look here I have 50,000 round her tracking device and these devices worry less than 50 grams and then excuse.
Me there are really really pricey little machines but obviously the data that we get from them is really really valuable so we do have our work cut out for us in order to try and raise that funding but looking at around 35,000 paralyzed Melissa it sounds to me as if everybody is done I really like thank you hey Melissa thanks for your time in the.
Evening it's really appreciated and and as I said we'll be in contact and try and see how we can use you and or some of the other bird life people in future this thing continues much longer which it seems it will why don't you really appreciate this thing while the best of you hi everyone thank you for your time people.
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