Raptor is on the brink of extinction

A survey has revealed that there might be only one breeding pair of Taita falcons left in South Africa

- Sheree Bega

Late last month, ornithologist Anthony van Zyl was among a team of researchers perched along the edges of the Batoka Gorge system, downstream of Victoria Falls.

Their mission? To locate the cryptic Taita falcon, one of Africa’s rarest and most elusive raptors.

With binoculars and telescopes trained on the cliffs the group, including eight teams from Zambia and five from Zimbabwe, scanned the horizon. But not one sighting of the cliff-nesting, bird-eating raptor was made.

“We saw plenty of other raptors, but not a single Taita falcon,” said Van Zyl. “For me, it really shows that while the Batoka Gorge used to be quite a stronghold for these birds, that population is now gone.”

He fears South Africa’s population of the small, stocky and little-known bird is headed the same way. It is one of the country’s rarest breeding birds and is listed as critically endangered.

“I honestly feel that this is going to be the case for the South African population too; that we used to have a whole lot and now, over the years, the population is snuffing out.”

Van Zyl is part of the BirdLife South Africa Taita Falcon Survey Team, which operates under the auspices of BirdLife South Africa. The survey team is recognised as the global species guardian for the Taita falcon by BirdLife International’s preventing extinctions programme.

The organisation estimates there are fewer than 500 pairs of Taita falcons left, which are sparsely found in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically scattered from Ethiopia down to northern South Africa.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the Batoka Gorge, in Zimbabwe, was the stronghold for the bird. In the mid-1990s at least six pairs were identified there. However, in the past decade there has been no sign of them.

An intensive survey in 2013 and 2014 by Zimbabwean and South African scientists, including Van Zyl, failed to find any Taita falcons.