In January 2004, the Meyer's Parrot Project was initiated by the Research Centre for African Parrot Conservation to facilitate learning and discovery about this previously unstudied, but topical and important transcontinental African parrot species in the wild. Three years later in January 2007 we set up our first independent research camp, thus allowing us to accommodate volunteers and dedicate every waking moment to parrot research. This field season was made possible by funding from the British Ecological Society and several private donors in the United States. On 5th February the camp was christened "Vundumtiki Parrot Camp". "Vundumtiki" means "one small fish" - a phrase taken from a Bayei folklore story of the island. Vundumtiki Island is located on the Maunachira Channel in the north-eastern Okavango Delta in the Kwedi Concession (NG22/23). This is one of the remotest locations in the Okavango Delta system, and is 3 hours from the closest airstrip and anything between 15 and 48 hours away from Maun, the closest town (300 kilometers away). For the intensive parrot work done between January and July during the primary breeding season we had between two and four volunteers at any one time in camp, and all had diverse life-changing experiences. For example, being charged by elephants, having lions eating a buffalo at a 10-hour observation site, and sharing a shower with the local leopard, were among their stories. Now to the parrots...
Of the 352 recognized parrot species in the world, very few have distributional ranges more extensive than the Meyer's Parrot, extending the length of Africa from South Africa all the way up to the N. Sudan. Furthermore, the Meyer's is the most common parrot in the atlas region and, importantly, no other species is geographically continuous with all the others. Work has been done on the endangered Cape Parrot, the threatened Ruppell's Parrot, the Brown-headed Parrot, the African Grey, the little-known Yellow-faced Parrot, and several of the lovebirds. All of these projects were motivated according to threat status, answering questions as to why these species have limited distributions or are threatened. We saw the need to do work on the Meyer's Parrot in order to answer questions in regard to why this parrot is so “successful” in the changing context on the African continent.
The Meyer's Parrot was discovered by Rüppel in the Sudan in 1827, and later named by Cretzschmar in honor of Hofrat Dr. med. Bernhard Meyer (1767-1836), who practiced medicine in Germany and was a respected botanist and ornithologist. Since then man's relationship with the Meyer's has developed from one of co-existence and balance, to a complex interaction of threat and persecution, and love and stewardship. Due to population and agricultural encroachment in the last 150 years, the Meyer's has been viewed as occasional crop pests, congregating on orange orchards and grain fields (e.g. sorghum and millet). This has been viewed as a nuisance and the parrots have been persecuted as a result. In the Northern Province, South Africa, where the Meyer's became a large-scale pest on the orange orchards, they were combated so effectively that they are now a very rare sighting. The parrots have also been seen to congregate on grain fields around the Okavango Basin, where as a result they are caught in nylon snares and mist nets and clubbed to death. On the other hand, the species has become very popular with aviculturalists around the world. There are many breeders, especially across Europe and North America, who specialise in Poicephalus species and some will even attempt to maintain pure specimens of the different Meyer's Parrot subspecies. The primary source for the parrots is live capture, as the Meyer's does not breed well in captivity and breeders need parrots with a traceable lineage for their breeding programs. Increasing demand has resulted in relatively high exports of the bird to Europe and North America in the late 80's and early 90's. Significant numbers were traded from Tanzania, peaking at just under 12,000 in 1987, but declining to <1200 in 1990. The extent and effect of current trade levels and persecution of the Meyer's Parrot throughout its range is currently unknown, but whether the relationship is love or hate both interactions result in capture or persecution in the wild.
It is our responsibility to manage this conflict to the advantage of both species, and the tools for this can only be acquired through dedicated research towards the development of a conservation plan and an immediate ban in the trade of wild African parrots.
In order to put my work on the Meyer's Parrot into context I would like to introduce the Okavango Delta…
The Okavango River finds its source in the Angolan highlands on the Benguella Plateau, flowing down the Cuito and Cubango sub-catchments, into the Okavango River in the Caprivi Strip, into Botswana at Mohembo, down through the panhandle where it begins to spread out between two parallel fault lines, before spilling over the Gumare fault line into the Okavango Delta itself. The system is not so much a delta, but rather an alluvial fan in that instead of discharging into a body of water, the waters of the Okavango filter into or evaporate off the Kalahari Sand Basin.
The Okavango Delta is one of the last remaining pristine wilderness areas in Africa or the world for that matter, as for the most part the system has remained unmanaged, unfenced and free of human encroachment and permanent habitation. The first Bantu tribes were estimated to only enter the delta some 250 years ago, about 100 years before the first Europeans. Some areas on Chief Island have never experienced any kind of commercial or subsistence hunting activity. The delta is truly Africa's wetland wilderness and provides a benchmark for future conservation and wildlife research.
The system includes 18000-square-kilometres of permanent swamp, floodplains, woodland, riverine forest, grassland, salt pans, islands, channels, and water. This patchwork mosaic of habitats and niches has provided for the rich diversity of plant (>1300), mammal (160), reptile (155), amphibian (35) and bird (>530) species within the system, making this the jewel of Botswana's wildlife resource.
The Okavango Delta system functions like a living organism, regulating and maintaining itself, maturing and changing, while evolving with the unpredictability and creativity of a conscious being. When you open yourself to this you begin to see and appreciate that this place is heaving, beating, calling and celebrating life - an abundance of life and spontaneity. The complex scenes that we cannot fully comprehend, the sudden and coordinated arrival and departure of hundreds of pelicans on one day and their sudden departure the next, the synchronized arrival of migrant bird species after the first rain, the overnight birth of thousands of impala, the swirling, diving, thundering flocks of millions upon millions of quelea birds, and the violent thunderstorms in the afternoons. Central to our lives as modern society is the desire to control, and we have developed a long way towards achieving this in all aspects of our lives and surrounding environment. We exercise this in the natural worlds by putting up fences, hunting, removing, adding and changing the environment around us. In visiting wilderness areas, such as the Okavango Delta, we have opportunity to experience and observe life in a state and context we exert very little control over. Fundamental to this experience is the realization that these places are truly wild and untamed, perfect images of a wilderness before modern man. Not unlike the feelings of peace and heightened awareness we experience when staring up at the stars, looking thoughtfully into a fire, watching the waves roll in, and listening to the wind blow through a forest. These are all primal forces that are spontaneous and free, fundamental, and unchanged.
My time in the Okavango Delta has been a period of exponential growth both in regard to my understanding of natural systems and myself. The opportunity presented to me in moving there in 2003, was the gift of time in the wilderness and exposure to the immeasurable influence of the natural world on the human mind. There is something in the quiet appreciation of the natural rhythms that regulate and cleanse wilderness systems. The only word I have for the functioning of the system as a whole and the behaviour of the wildlife within it is, "honesty", something that is in short supply in our modern society. There is no second-guessing the intentions or motives of an animal as you observe it surviving and interacting. There are no issues related to fairness or trust, all you have is an infinitely complex tapestry of family, life, death, creativity, colour and environment. A web of life we will never completely understand, and therefore, are naïve to think we could ever manage, manipulate or protect through intervention. Every action that we initiate within a wilderness system has a ripple effect into the future. Every action that we initiate takes something away from what is wilderness, takes something away from that which our souls need as a benchmark. An experience in a wilderness area such as the Okavango Delta is not about seeing a lion, an elephant, a giraffe, a leopard, or a cheetah, it's about those times you have on the mokoro, walking in the bush and spending time in silent meditation. These are your opportunities to experience true wilderness, to hear it around you, to see it, to feel it, and through this appreciate the magnitude and complexity of this tapestry. Walking quietly through the bush you begin to realise that the wilderness is alive below the grass, in the trees, in the air above you and in the wildlife you see around you. The only way in which I can relate this feeling of connectivity to something primordial to a person that has never been in a wilderness area is through the following analogy:
"When you are in your home, in that secure and safe corner at night, and the lights go out. You instantly feel uneasy, get pins and needles, and start looking around for a candle or a flashlight. That feeling of something lurking in the darkness, someone there, is the "wild". It's the wild saying, "I'm here, I'm still here". No matter how much we become separated, I am still here, around you and within you". For those brief moments in the darkness, all the fluff we surround ourselves with is gone. All the marketing, all the colours and noise, the television, the magazines, the objects and possessions, all our clutter is gone, giving what is wild a chance to speak to us. Time spent in the wilderness allows us to experience this energy in its purest form. An overwhelming feeling of fear, fascination and peace, and in the delta an opportunity to be completely overwhelmed by and immersed in a place not unlike what you would have found 30 000 years ago."
Societies in the modern world have separated themselves from natural rhythms and the ebb of the universe through the use of human dates and memories to mark times for celebration and commemoration. Ancient Societies, such as the San, the Aborigine, and the Native Indians of the Americas, all celebrated according to the natural rhythms of the environment and cosmos. They used the rising of stars, the moon and the sun, the summer solstice, the winter equinox, the seasonal arrival and departure of wildlife, and the ripening of fruits, nuts and berries for collection. Through this synchronisation of society with natural rhythms these peoples not only felt a connection to the environment around them, but also associated the natural environment with their gods and ancestors. Respect for the environment was inevitable and an ecocentric ethic the norm. Today, we create artificial climates that remain unchanged, we live under lights for most of the day and night, and we do not look at the sky for the time anymore. As a result of this separation we have adopted a utilitarian environmental ethic, whereby trees are grown to be cut down, bird and animal species are shot because they are beautiful, and rhino are conserved because they are valuable. We must change.
Next week I will write on the 2007 field season...
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