The wetlands support a local fishing community that generates US$8m in fish which is traded and provides an income for some 50 000 people. The Bangweulu Wetlands is listed as a RAMSAR sight and is home to 200 – 300 shoebills and the endemic black lechwe. The community facilitator at the Bangweulu Wetlands Project has since visited him on several occasions to make sure he understands how the shoebill guard program works and that removing the chicks from their parents is a last resort. If the villager had left the chick where it was, the Bangweulu Wetlands Project would have employed him as a shoebill guard for that nest for the season.

Seymour will also have his own ‘birdy ID’ – a ring that helps project managers to identify him.

When that day arrives Seymour will be fitted with a satellite transmitter to monitor progress. Seymour is now in a large enclosure in his natural environment, where he will continue to be attended to until he is ready to fledge. Seymour, however, does have visiting hours in which people can see him through a sheet of glass.

Older shoebill chicks spend a vast amount of time by themselves in the wild while their parent is on the hunt. This simulates the parent dribbling water for the chick from its beak.Īs Seymour got bigger he was fed only three times a day, and bigger pieces of fish were left around the nest to encourage him to peck and forage. Watering is done using a large syringe that is dribbled into the chick’s open mouth or onto the chick when it is hot. Since Seymour is a waterbird he needs to be watered. The sheet is also left in the enclosure so that there is always something familiar for the chick. He was fed five to six times a day by a person in a grey sheet and sock puppet not to break the human form. © African Parks/Bangweulu Wetlands © African Parks/Bangweulu WetlandsĪs with crane-rearing, human contact is limited to prevent Seymour from imprinting. At night he was put in a quiet box with a hot water bottle and a heavy blanket to stimulate brooding. Since then, Seymour built up a robust appetite, continued to grow and spent most of his time with his wooden figure of a mother ‘protecting the nest’ as his parent would have done in the wild. Although unsure of the chick’s sex and not entirely in favour of naming wild animals the handlers christened the chick Seymour. Seymour arrived at the project ravenous after living on a diet of cassava for two days. The man kept the bird at home and later notified the project staff about its location. When he noticed footprints around the nest he believed the shoebill was at risk and took the baby bird into his care. A local villager heard stories that people from another nearby village were planning to steal the newly hatched shoebill. © African Parks/Bangweulu WetlandsĪfrican Parks employ guards to watch the known shoebill nests every season to protect the nests from people and fire, all of which threaten these prehistoric-looking birds. The chick was rescued by an environmentally conscious villager in Zambia’s Bangweulu Wetlands and is now in the care of the Bangweulu Wetlands Project. So ugly he’s cute: Seymour is a shoebill chick with a bottomless stomach, named ever so fittingly after Seymour in the Little Shop of Horrors.

Baby shoebill