Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS scientists contribute to effectiveness of vulture restaurants

03 January 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Leonie Bolleurs

Endangerd read more — Prof Aliza le Roux and Dr Mpho Ramoejane at the vulture restaurant, nearly 30 km from Clarens. This is a safe space for vultures to feed, in an effort to increase their declining numbers.

Endangered bird species such as the Cape and bearded vultures attract bird enthusiasts from afar. These birds are close to extinction in Southern Africa and classified as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation Nature (IUCN) list, with a strong global decline in their numbers.

A viewing hide constructed by honorary rangers in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, about 30 km from Clarens in the Eastern Free State, offers tourists the opportunity to view and photograph the birds as they feed at one of South Africa’s close to 200 vulture restaurants.

This tourist attraction is situated in a good location from a conservation perspective, with vulture colonies and – importantly – water close by, according to Prof Aliza le Roux.

Prof Le Roux, Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology and Entomology on the Qwaqwa Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) and affiliated to the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU), is working with one of her students, Agnes Mkotywa, on a study regarding the effectiveness of this feeding site.

Poisoned carcasses big threat to vultures

She said there are quite a few vulture restaurants in the area, with the most famous one at Giants Castle.

A vulture restaurant is an area where park rangers drop non-poisoned carcasses, mostly donated by nearby farmers. Poisoned carcasses, bait for other animals such as jackals and caracals, are one of the biggest threats to vultures.

The vulture restaurants, an effort to get vulture populations to grow, are within the reach of Cape and bearded vultures. But, as found in Mkotywa’s study, the initiative has its shortcomings.

Prof Le Roux said the current structures are open, and black-backed jackals come to feed any time of the day and night. “There is more feeding of the jackals than the intended vultures, and the current structure does not protect the vultures against the jackals,” she said. Jackal activity at the vulture restaurant is significantly higher than elsewhere in the park, as supported by camera traps set up in the park by Dr Mpho Ramoejane, currently an ARU postdoctoral researcher.

Raised platform a possible solution

“This is one of our primary research findings. A possible solution is to put up fences. It will, however, keep everything else out and will be an eyesore from a tourist perspective. A raised platform that could exclude the jackals and still provide the vultures with a large landing place, might work,” Prof Le Roux added.

Another finding was that carcasses are not dropped regularly enough. Vultures cannot predict when there will be food.

These findings will be published in peer-reviewed outlets, but it will also be communicated to the management of the South African National Parks (SANParks) to address the problem. “SANParks is involved in the project and wants the information. They said they needed the information and will build on it,” said Prof Le Roux.

Once the suggested changes are implemented, she is excited to scientifically document how these changes are making a difference. This has the potential to guide the management and development of vulture restaurants elsewhere in South Africa and the world.

News Archive

Prof Antjie Krog speaks on verbalising revulsion and the collusion of men

2015-06-26

From the left are Prof Lucius Botes, UFS: Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Helene Strauss, UFS: Department of English; Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, UFS: Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies; Prof Antjie Krog, UCT: Department Afrikaans and Dutch; Dr Buhle Zuma, UCT: Department of Psychology. Both Prof Strauss and Dr Zuma are partners in the Mellon Foundation research project.

“This is one of the bitterest moments I have ever endured. I would rather see my daughter carried away as a corpse than see her raped like this.”

This is one of 32 testimonies that were locked away quietly in 1902. These documents, part of the NC Havenga collection, contain the testimonies of Afrikaner women describing their experiences of sexual assault and rape at the hands of British soldiers during the South African War.

This cluster of affidavits formed the foundation of a public lecture that Prof Antjie Krog delivered at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus on Tuesday 23 June 2015. The lecture, entitled ‘They Couldn’t Achieve their Goal with Me: Narrating Rape during the South African War’, was the third instalment in the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past. The series is hosted by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS, as part of a five-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Verbalising revulsion

The testimonies were taken down during the last two months of the war, and “some of the women still had marks and bruises on their bodies as evidence,” Prof Krog said. The victims’ words, on the other hand, struggled to express the story their bodies told.

What are the nouns for that which one sees? What words are permissible in front of men? How does one process revulsion verbally? These are the barriers the victims – raised with Victorian reserve – faced while trying to express their trauma, Prof Krog explained.

The collusion of men

When the war ended, there was a massive drive to reconcile the Boers and the British. “Within this process of letting bygones be bygones,” Prof Krog said, “affidavits of severe violations by white men had no place. Through the collusion of men, prioritising reconciliation between two white male hierarchies, these affidavits were shelved, and, finally, had to suffer an embargo.”

“It is only when South Africa accepted a constitution based on equality and safety from violence,” Prof Krog said, “that the various levels of deeply-rooted brutality, violence, and devastation of men against the vulnerable in society seemed to burst like an evil boil into the open, leaving South African aghast in its toxic suppurations. As if, for many decades, we did not know it was there and multiplied.”

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept