Green developments a home for mammals

Ballito’s boom in eco estate development and villages where there once were sugarcane fields may slowly be attracting mammals like duikers, bush bucks, hyraxes and mongooses back to the area.

PhD candidate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Yvette Ehlers Smith, has been studying the impact of changing land use on mammals in KZN. Although her area of study has been the South Coast, much of what she has observed is valid up north.

“Mammals’ natural habitat in KZN has over the years become highly fragmented due to agriculture, forestry and urbanisation, leaving only 1185 square kilometres of forest, in patches of less than a square kilometre. This forest makes up a meager 16 percent of the surface area of KZN and only 25 percent of this land falls within nature reserves and conservancies,” she said.

Forests have become islands in agricultural and urban landscapes and mammals have had to adapt. Ehlers Smith found that duikers have become more active at night because of disturbances (cars, noise and human activity) during the day.

“Inbreeding makes small, isolated populations vulnerable to extinction and that is why corridors of forest, linking forest patches are vital as they are ‘little highways’ for animals to move through.”

These “little highways” are also thought to be the reason why species sometimes get to areas where they are not normally found. There are not supposed to be Nyalas in the Vernon Crookes Reserve on the South Coast, but Ehlers Smith recently discovered a few there.

The biggest threats to habitats were alteration and degradation of forests, snares, poaching and road kill, hunting with dogs, and people’s pets attacking wildlife.

Much of the land on which Zimbali was built was previously sugarcane fields and Ehlers Smith said mammal species like duiker, bush buck, mongoose and vervet monkeys have repopulated that land since it was rehabilitated to natural forest.

“Conservancies are also making a big difference and there are a number of ways in which people further assist in attracting animals.”

She encouraged people to plant indigenous plants that attract animals and the leaving of enough cover so that they feel safe. Growing strelitzias, for example, attracts blue duikers.

People should also keep their dogs in and away from wildlife or train them not to chase animals. Land owners who do regular snare removals and compensate staff for removing snares also made a huge difference.