Dullstroom Birds of Prey & Rehabilitation Centre + Raptor-friendly Rodent-control.

Article and photographs by Denni Raubenheimer

This Verreaux's Eagle is one of the Centre's many feathered residents.

The Dullstroom Birds of Prey & Rehabilitation Centre is located just outside of Dullstroom and had its beginnings in 1999. Initially focused on educating the public on raptors and their conservation, the Centre gradually developed its capacity for rehabilitating birds and is today recognised as a rehabilitation centre by Mpumalanga’s Nature Conservation body. The Centre is equipped with a more than capable hospital and manages to successfully rehabilitate and release about 30% of the damaged birds that get brought to the centre. Furthermore, offspring of survivors that cannot be released are released into the wild if the situation allows it.

Mark Holder, one of the owners of the Centre, was kind enough to answer some questions regarding the centre and bird-friendly rodent control methods.

Mark, what do most of the birds that get brought to the Centre suffer from?
Most of the birds that come in are orphans, victims of car collisions, or poison, were hooked up on barbed wire, or are bigger birds that collided with over head cables.

What are the most common sources of poisoning that you deal with at the centre?
Owls poisoned by people putting out rat poison. This occurs when an owl eats a poisoned rat.

Rat poison is a widely used means of controlling mice and rat populations around homes etc.. What birds and wildlife are rodenticides likely to harm? Is any group of raptors particularly vulnerable to rodenticides?
Predominantly owls.

Are all rodenticides harmful to birds that sometimes prey on poisoned rodents?
“All” poisons are harmful, “bird-friendly” poisons just take longer if the owl persists on feeding on the poisoned rodents.

What would you suggest as a means of controlling rodent populations around homes etc.?
Electric Rat Zapper, rat traps and owl boxes (to encourage owls to come and live in your vicinity).

How can the public contribute to the Centre’s success?
They can visit us and then send their family and friends. They can adopt a bird. If they don’t want to do any of the above they can simply donate money :)

Owls are more common in urban environments than most would think. This Spotted Eagle-Owl was photographed just outside of Scheerpoort, near the Gauteng-Northwest border.

When I visited the Dullstroom Birds of Prey & Rehabilitation Centre roughly two months ago I was impressed with the large aviaries and thoroughly enjoyed the educational demonstration. In these demonstrations, birds that were made dependant on humans by uninformed members of public are kept fit in the process of giving an aerial show to the attending visitors. I was also impressed by much of the Centre’s philosophy. For instance, they put an emphasis on first making sure that a bird is fit before releasing it – a procedure that a study proved capable of making the difference between survival and death.

This Peregrin Falcon became dependant on human care and is a permanant resident at the centre. Members of the public should never raise rescued, or found, birds of prey, as prolonged human interaction, especially with juvenile birds, can render raptors unable to survive in the wild.

Regarding rat poisons: Though owl boxes and rat traps are by far more raptor-friendly means of controlling rodents, there are people that insist on using rat poison. Such people would do good in rather using raptor-friendly rodenticides, such as Racumin, that have a very much smaller chance of killing owls and raptors feeding on poisoned rats.

It is encouraging that establishments like the Dullstroom Birds of Prey & Rehabilitation Centre save a large number of birds that would otherwise have died due to human influence. May the Centre and all other such establishments be prospered.