Page 21 - UKZN Foundation AR 2024

FORD WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
DONATES VEHICLES FOR ECOLOGY RESEARCH
Research on hippos’, fish, herps, birds and various other mammals by postgraduate students and researchers in UKZN’s School of Life Sciences is benefitting from a donation by the Ford Wildlife Foundation (FWF) of two Ford Ranger (double cab) 4×4 vehicles.
The vehicles are part of Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa’s (FMCSA) commitment to the conservation and preservation of the environment in sub-Saharan Africa. The FMCSA handles maintenance of the vehicles during their use by partner organisations undertaking conservation work.
Overseen by Professor Colleen Downs, South African Research Chair in Ecosystem Health and Biodiversity in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, the research activities supported by these vehicles include projects exploring the impacts of changing land use, including urbanisation, on biodiversity.
The vehicles enable researchers to access various research and field sites across several provinces, as they are capable of traversing all kinds of terrain found in South Africa’s nature reserves, parks and protected areas, as well as in neighbouring countries.
With the vehicles, Downs and her team will continue their research on a range of fish, herp, bird (including vultures) and mammalian species in South Africa, focusing on the threats posed by anthropogenic land-use change. One aspect is examining the movement of some of these species with these changes. The vehicles will aid in their efforts to improve conservation, management, and public awareness of various threatened species.
The team are using the vehicles for a project on wetlands and hippos, one of Africa’s iconic species. Hippos are classified as vulnerable and have experienced significant population decline since the 1990s. They are valuable to the tourism industry and play a crucial role as ecosystem engineers in their environment.
Research on hippos is limited, despite their importance. Their reliance on threatened water bodies and adjacent grasslands, coupled with the impacts of changing land use and climate change, puts their existence at risk. This endangers aquatic and riparian environments, which already face vulnerability.
Since 2015, Downs and her team have been studying the behaviour and ecology of hippos to better understand their ecological role in South African aquatic and terrestrial systems.
UKZN postgrad researchers Jonah Gula, Rynhardt le Roux, and collaborator Amukena Mungole attaching a tracking device to an African Spoonbill in Liuwa Plain National Park, Zambia.
Ford Wildlife Foundation (FWF) loaned two Ford Ranger (double cab) 4×4 vehicles in April 2023, to the Downs Lab in the School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.
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