Secretarybirds – saving Africa’s striders
Secretarybirds – saving Africa’s striders
BirdLife South Africa established its Secretarybird Conservation Project in 2011 after the species was uplisted to globally Vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Unfortunately, in 2020 declines in the species across its global range has led to its uplisting to globally Endangered, highlighting the reality of the extinction risk facing this large terrestrial bird of prey. Over the past decade we have learnt a lot about the movements and behaviour of these birds through a dedicated tracking study and as we work tirelessly across the Grasslands of South Africa to conserve this important habitat. Dr Melissa Whitecross, as Landscape Conservation Programme Manager and former Raptor & Large Terrestrial Bird Project Manager at BirdLife South Africa, will unpack some of the lessons learned during the 11-year conservation journey to save the ‘Sentinels of the Grasslands’. Join Melissa as she shares her passion and insights on the Secretarybird, an iconic, unique apex predator of Africa’s open landscapes.
Organizer
Dr Melissa Whitecross is BirdLife South Africa’s Landscape Conservation Programme Manager and is responsible for coordinating this environmental NGO’s threatened and endemic terrestrial sites and species conservation work. Melissa previously worked as the Raptor & Large Terrestrial Bird Project Manager where she coordinated projects on species such as the Endangered Secretarybird. Melissa holds a PhD in environmental science from Wits University. Melissa is the founder and host of BirdLife South Africa’s Conservation Conversations weekly webinar series. Melissa has been awarded the Leslie Brown Memorial Grant from the Raptor Research Foundation, an IUCN SOS Rapid Response Grant for Blue Swallow Conservation and a Nedbank Green Trust Grant for ‘Recognising, assessing and reporting on OECMs in the Western Cape’. Melissa spends much of her free time travelling around South Africa exploring and photographing the country’s natural biodiversity (Instagram: @melissaw27). Melissa is also a keen birder having seen 768 different bird species within southern Africa so far.