That fall is precipitous enough to make the survival of every egg and every chick count, which is where fishermen like Chisabi come in. A 2016 population estimate by the IUCN suggested that 3,300 to 5,300 mature adults remain in the wild-down from between 5,000 to 8,000 mature adults in 2008. When people get too close, spooked Shoebills desert their nests, leaving eggs and chicks vulnerable to water lizards, snakes, and eagles.Īll these threats have hurt the species’ wild population. Shoebills are shy birds, requiring large areas of undisturbed habitat in which to breed. Photo: Mana Meadows/African Parksīesides the threat presented by poachers, fires and human encroachment also put the species at risk. That makes the 100-or-so Shoebills at Bangweulu Africa’s second-most important population. BirdLife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classify the birds as vulnerable to extinction, and they survive in only a handful of countries: South Sudan, home to the continent’s largest population of some 5,000 birds, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Shoebills are endemic to Africa and live only in remote marshy places. Only two have ever hatched-one at Parc Paradiso, Belgium, in 2008, and the other at ZooTampa, U.S.A., in 2009-which puts constant pressure on a diminishing wild population to meet the demand for these rare, prehistoric-looking birds. But breeding Shoebills in captivity is incredibly difficult. In Saudi Arabia and Dubai, enthusiasts are reported to pay more than $10,000 to add a Shoebill to their collection. Their eggs and chicks are profitable targets for poachers supplying the illegal live-bird trade. That’s because it’s not only Chisabi who is interested in Shoebill nests. But here I am now, working and earning a salary because of it.”Ĭommunity members of the Bangweulu Wetlands. “I did not realize that it could provide employment for me in Bangweulu. “I always looked at the Shoebill as just a bird and of no importance and value,” he says.

Monitoring and guarding enormous floating nests is not part of a typical fisherman's job. He’ll be back later to check again on the nest, keen to see if eggs were laid and also to monitor any signs of human disturbance.

Chisabi takes notes-recording the nest’s GPS coordinates as well as its size-before quietly paddling away. He is Junior Chisabi, a local fisherman with intimate knowledge of the lush wetlands. Unbeknownst to the parents-to-be, a man watches from a canoe a short distance away. With some luck this floating nursery will soon be home to one, and possibly two, chalk-white Shoebill eggs. The birds place their gathered nest materials on top of a 10-foot-wide platform they built earlier, and then stomp and flatten them into a three-foot-wide platter.

Close relatives of pelicans but stork-like in appearance, Shoebills get their name from their clog-shaped bills. The pair is now building their nest by using these improbable implements to grab at hefty clumps of reed and papyrus. These birds, both almost four-feet-tall, are Shoebills. On a small swampy island, a pair of large, gawky birds-one male, the other female-stretch slate-coloured wings. Now all that remains of the floodwaters are shimmering lagoons and an intricate network of tranquil waterways rich with nutrients that snake around thickets of reeds and marshland. It’s September in the Bangweulu Wetlands in northeast Zambia, and the epic rains that annually flood the vast plains and grasslands have retreated.

Shoebill birds