Raptor Rescue

This is the primary project of the African Raptor Trust which handles all rescue, treatment, rehabilitation and release of injured or orphaned birds of prey. Raptor Rescue's specialized raptor hospital is based at the African Bird of Prey Sanctuary. Injured birds must always be given the best chances for a full recovery and rehabilitation. Our priority is to get distressed raptors back into the wild!

The Raptor Rescue unit is kept completely separate from the public awareness facility to ensure the success of the rehabilitation process. Exposing the injured raptor too large numbers of people would only stress the injured creature further and housing a rescued bird amongst the healthy display birds is potentially dangerous if the sick raptor has an infectious disease. Close association with people can also result in the bird becoming too tame, or imprinted, which will impair the chances of it being released back into the wild.

All rehabilitated raptors are ringed by the Natal University and released back into a suitable habitat. If they have spent very little time in captivity, then they are released into exactly the same place from whence they came.

Effective Rehabilitation is Conservation in Action

As the human race multiplies in number, their impact on the natural environment expands, pressurizing the territories of wild raptor populations. In their wild state, birds of prey may have a 70% mortality in their first year. This naturally high mortality means that the impact of humans on the surviving 30% is marked. Raptors are therefore vulnerable to mans’ presence and we need to take responsibility for our detrimental influence on their numbers.

The rehabilitation of injured or sick birds of prey has a part to play in raptor conservation as long as it is done in a scientific manner. The majority of raptor injuries seen in rehabilitation centres are from clashes with mankind. Poisoning, being hit by cars, hitting windows, fences or powerlines, being shot at or taken from the nest for example. Arguably, rehabilitating 20 or 30 raptors a year may have little positive impact on wild raptor populations as a whole, but there is also much to be learnt from the whole process of rescue and rehabilitation.

For the process of raptor rehabilitation to play a serious role in the conservation of birds of prey it has to be scientifically based and practiced by qualified individuals with suitable experience. A good working knowledge of captive husbandry, progressive medicine (supervised by an experienced vet) combined with a biological understanding of how a raptor lives in the wild is necessary for the successful identification, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of an injured or orphaned bird of prey.

How the process of rehabilitation can aid raptor conservation:

1We can identify the threats to raptor populations.

2We are able to pick up bird movements and extremes in population ranges.

3We can discover which treatments are successful on these aerial predators that are required to constantly perform at the peak of their capabilities.

4We can develop methods of captive management

5Information gained in the process of rehabilitation must be recorded and can compliment research data collected in field.

Taking responsibility..

It is only man who creates the need to conserve a species, and only man who can devise and take the necessary conservation measures in order to protect them.

                                          Ornathologist Dr Leslie Brown