The unfinished journey: capturing Wattled Cranes for conservation

Dr. Lara Fuller, Drakensberg Project Coordinator, South Africa for the African Crane Conservation Programme writes about a new initiative to understand the movement of these vulnerable birds more closely – a subject close to Verloren Valei’s collective heart. Reprinted with permission from the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s magazine, Conservation Conversations. Read the original article.

Charles Mpofu of the Wild Bird Trust Okavango Wilderness Project using a drone to survey the vast area of the Delta

Wattled Cranes are globally Vulnerable. They move with the available waters in large floodplains across south-central Africa through several countries including Botswana, Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi. It is this movement that is vital for conservationists to understand so that conservation goals can be impactful.

Wattled Cranes are notoriously difficult to catch as they have excellent vision and they are not easily coerced into an area, which most capture techniques rely on.

Charles Mpofu of Botswana Wild Bird Trust (WBT)/Okavango Wilderness Project recently approached the EWT for assistance in capturing and handling cranes. Given the synergies between our work, we accepted and I travelled to Botswana to start work on a project that will take some time to complete.

Our first step on the journey was to test the transmitter and harness design by trialling them on captive Wattled Cranes. Out of this work some modifications were made to the transmitter by its developer SpoorTrack to design the dimension specifically for the species. The second step was to understand the best technique to capture Wattled cranes in the Okavango Delta. As the environment is a wilderness with multiple natural dangers, we spoke to the only people who had attempted to catch the species in the Delta — Pete Hancock and Ralph Bousefield in Maun, and Kevin Mcann who had joined the team based in South Africa.

After much discussion the main technique advised was light trapping at a roost site. This approach allows for opportunistic capture in a dynamic and changing environment and allows a capture team to avoid predatory dangers. We had not previously used this technique and learning a new procedure in the wilderness was never going to be easy.

The third step was to find the birds in the vast flood plains of the delta. Charles narrowed this down with aerial surveys to identify a flock in accessible reach, and he spoke to lodge owners and field guides in that area.

On 13 May we started a two-week expedition on the Gomoti River, amply equipped with two Mokoros (a traditional canoe for traveling on the shallow flood plains), two Landcruisers, solar charging battery and remote camping equipment. The first two days were spent ground surveying for Wattled Cranes and learning from a local NPO ‘Connect Trust’ where the accessible roads and river crossings were. Travelling from base camp to the capture site took three to four hours a day due to the difficulty of sandy roads. Understanding where the cranes roosted was vital, and because we were losing important hours on the road, we moved to a new camp in the bush from where we could easily monitor the cranes dawn to dusk. Despite the campsite move the Wattled Cranes were incredibly elusive in sharing details of their roost sites. Flying in and out of foraging grounds in the dark, a mechanism to protect them from predators.

After a few days of 6am mornings and 9pm evenings we had identified a daylight foraging space to which the birds returned to every day. This site had recently been burned and would mark our capture attempts for the remaining expedition. Establishing safe passage across the river for night capture we set up a system using the mokoros so that we could reach the grounds safely. At this site we made numerous attempts to capture the cranes using bird hides, toe noose matts, and using the flashlight technique. Although we came within a few meters of the cranes, numerous difficulties were encountered. Lechwe hampered our attempts to capture during daylight hours by threatening to beat the cranes into the traps.

Wattled Cranes close to the camp site

During the night hours hippos were out foraging, and lions could be heard hunting. Not an ideal scenario when you’re travelling on foot. Other aspects obstructing capture was the unhelpful moon cycle, and although there were numerous breeding elephant herds they were very regimented in their movements and were easily avoided.

With a lot of experience and lessons learned we attempted our second expedition on the Boro River from 7 July 2024 for 10 days. This time we armed ourselves with some camouflaged toe noose traps, some very bright flashlights and a FLIR. One of the most difficult aspects we found during the night captures was that we could only see as far as a flashlight. This is a little discouraging when running into the night after a crane. The FLIR proved to be a valued member of the team and was excellently designed for its purpose.

The second expedition was supported by the prestigious game lodge Xigera in the heart of the Okavango permanent wetland. As we explored the reserve we were delighted to find over 20 pairs of Wattled Cranes, enabling a number of capture attempts on the same night at different sites. We were hopeful. However, although we were spending up to 19 hours in the field, observing where the pairs moved to during the day and attempting captures at night, we found that there were only four pairs that had steady territories. This was because these birds were starting to breed. Despite this the expedition attempted eight night captures. We came as close as four meters to one crane before the mud tied up Charles and the Landcruiser. We even came within couple of meters of capturing with toe noose matts, until the Buffalo and Impala decided to race the cranes to the traps.

Capture site inhabited by 10 Wattled Cranes

It was T.S. Elliot who said: “It is the journey not the arrival that matters”.

As we reflect on these expeditions and consider the way forward, Charles will be joining us in South Africa along with colleagues in the African Crane Conservation Programme (ACCP) from Uganda, Kenya and Zambia, an American colleague from the International Crane Foundation and a number of South African colleagues from ACCP and Wildlife Energy Programme, to attempt to capture Grey Crowned and Blue Cranes in Mpumalanga. This will form a part of a workshop where we will share our knowledge and experience in Crane and other bird captures to create more innovative approaches to captures in especially the difficult flood plains of the south-central Africa. These will include questionnaires that will draw out the why, when, where and how Crane captures are performed across the globe. This will be compiled under the auspicious IUCN Crane Specialist Group to develop best practice guidelines for captures. In addition, we have through this process bridged a gap between generations of experienced crane catches enabling us to build on the knowledge of the past and not reinventing old new techniques. Conservation relies on collaboration and working together, and these attempts are creating a stronger team of skilled conservationist across Africa for the benefit of crane species. What better example could we have of conservation in action!

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