Cape Parrot Project, South Africa

The Cape Parrot Project was founded out of a small village called Hogsback in 2009 as the first project of the Wild Bird Trust. The Cape Parrot, Poicephalus robustus, is the only parrot endemic to South Africa, and the species is threatened with a wild population size of less than 2,000. Cape Parrots are endangered by the degradation of their forest habitat which causes them to lack abundant food and nest sites. The Cape Parrot Project contributes to the conservation of the Cape Parrot through working with local communities on habitat restoration and filling in key knowledge gaps with research.

The current lack of understanding of the factors that determine habitat quality for Cape Parrots comprises one of these key knowledge gaps. The Cape Parrot Project and the Davies Lab are collaborating on a research project to produce spatially referenced forest maps to predict overall habitat quality and breeding habitat quality of Cape Parrots and the structural and topographical variables that characterize these measures of habitat quality. Passive Acoustic Monitoring enables measurements of habitat quality, and we are using LiDAR data to measure the structural and topographical variables.

This research project is located in the Amathole region of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The region supports the largest sub-population of Cape Parrots in the country with 40,000 hectares of indigenous mistbelt forest, which is managed under a multi-use approach by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment. Current projects rely on a combination of ground truthing and LiDAR data. Ground truthing data has been collected from seven forests: Qacu, Kologha, Donsta, Schwarzwald Forest, Wolf River Forest, Auckland State forest, and Hogsback State Forest. LiDAR data has been collected from five forests: Kologha, Schwarzwald Forest, Wolf River Forest, Hogsback State Forest, and Lushington Crown Forest. Data from Schwarzwald Forest and Wolf River Forest has been used to investigate the impact of historical logging on Cape Parrot habitat. 

Text and image courtesty of Julian Handler, Harvard College Undergraduate