The plan
As part of a long-term conservation programme starting in 2010, we will take Madagascar pochard eggs and hatch them using the expertise of WWT’s aviculturalists in a purpose-built facility. But because, during our visit to Madagascar in July, we found that the situation was so critical, we had to send a small team to take two to three clutches this October – as a safeguard against potential disasters over the coming year.
Since the main project has not begun, we have had to improvise and create temporary rearing facilities. We secured agreement with a hotel in Antsohihy, the nearest major town to the lake, to adapt one of their chalets for rearing young ducklings, and to construct some small ponds in their grounds for when the ducklings are older. Much of the specialist rearing equipment (incubators, bird food, tanks in which to raise the ducklings, etc) was sent to Madagascar ahead of the team.
Timing is everything
Planning the timing of the team’s visits to Madagascar was critical. The first team were going to set up equipment and extract the first clutch. They have 30 days to do this, before their visas run out, so a second team was timed to arrive and overlap with the first team to extract further clutches and go on to raise the ducklings.
Kassidi and Toloo – observers from Durrell and Peregrine – had travelled to the lake in late September to monitor the situation. They discovered that the breeding season was underway, and that three of the six females had already hatched clutches. Worryingly, most of their young disappeared within days. But they also identified that three other females were preparing to lay eggs. Daily observations of their behaviour enabled us to determine when they started to incubate – which allowed us to calculate roughly when their eggs should hatch.
We estimated that a clutch should hatch on 26 October. It then became a race against time to get the team and their equipment to the lake to take the eggs before then.
A race against time
The first team – which includes WWT’s Nige and Sparky, and Glyn Young from Durrell in Jersey – flew out to Madagascar on 14 October. This was 12 days before the clutch was expected to hatch. Plenty of time, but flight delays, an electrical storm and an unscheduled diversion via Kenya meant the team arrived in Madagascar two days later than planned.
The team spent a few days in Antananarivo (the capital of Madagascar, known as Tana for short) making final arrangements but were hampered by hitches including customs hold-ups – leading to hastily sourcing alternative improvised equipment, and various ailments within the team from tummy troubles to swine flu. But the hiccups were not over yet.
A bridge too far?
Already three days behind schedule, the team learned that a major bridge on the road from Tana to Antsohihy had fallen down and the alternative crossing was also impassable. Knowing it might take days to be re-opened, they decided to set off anyway, with the option of holing up at Ampijoroa (a Durrell tortoise-breeding facility nearby) until they could cross the bridge.
But the bridge remained closed, so an alternative plan was made to ford the river, take taxi-brousses (local public transport) on the other side, and hire a tractor and trailer for the last 40-km ‘road’ to the lake. Time was ticking away. The eggs were due to hatch in a few days – but that date was based on observations of birds disappearing into reeds, so it would be easy to be wrong by a day two. If the team do not reach the lake at the weekend, they risk missing the clutch altogether.
Finally crossing the bridge, the team were now five days behind schedule. It was too far to make the lake that day, so they stop at the hotel in Antsohihy. The team worked flat out from early afternoon till gone midnight to set up the rearing tanks in one of the chalets, ready to receive the ducklings. Then news is received that the equipment shipped from Slimbridge has been released from customs and Richard Lewis, the Director of Durrell in Madagascar, planned to travel north to bring it to the hotel.
Too late?
It takes all of the next day simply to travel to the lake and they arrive by nightfall. The local villagers in Madagascar care passionately about their wildlife –we’ve been granted permission to extract ducklings on condition that the rearing facility is built in the same political region as the lake. So the next morning sees the team waiting for the local mayor to arrive. He will be one of the key observers of the activities and will relay the events to the villagers.
While waiting, the team walks out to a specially constructed raised platform, which allows you to see over the reeds and watch birds on the lake. As they climb up, they see pochard ducklings a few days old.
Realisation washes over them. They are too late. They’ve missed the fourth clutch. The team is inconsolable.
Yet they still have work to do. A key task is to assess the state of the other clutches. We know that a fifth clutch is now being incubated, and that a sixth female had started laying eggs at the beginning of the week, so they take a canoe and enter the reeds to check on progress. (If they can weigh and measure the eggs, they can estimate the hatch dates more closely.)
Not quite…
Deep in the reeds, they find a female sat tight on a nest. Under her are nine eggs – and two are hatching! They transfer them immediately to a field incubator. It seems that they have found the fourth clutch after all – and not a moment too soon. In a tent by the side of the lake, eight of the eggs duly hatch.
Transporting the precious cargo
Encouraged by the accuracy of Kassidi’s observations to predict the hatch date to within a couple of days, they decide not to look for further nests for fear of causing disturbance.
The team then puts into place a plan we hatched in July. A convoy of three vehicles took the birds from the lake to the hotel. It is decided that the vehicle carrying the ducklings hangs a little way behind the others. Then, when the front runners hit a big pothole or bump that might damage the ducklings they radio back to the following vehicle to warn them to slow down.
The team is up at 4am and leaves at first light, to take advantage of the cooler conditions – it will be a gruelling trip for the ducklings. But shortly after setting off, one vehicle breaks down, and another stays to help fix it. So Sparky, Nige and Glyn inch their way slowly to Bealanana in the remaining vehicle, the ducklings in a cool-box cuddled by Sparky on his lap in the front seat. They stop midway – and the ducklings have their first swim and feed (and poo!) in a sandwich box filled with bottled water. The team finally reaches the hotel safely in the middle of the afternoon.
Success!
This is a momentous achievement. Against all the odds, we have Madagascar pochards in captivity! Indeed, we have a quarter of the world population in our care. The first major step to save this species has been taken.
But the next 2-3 weeks remain critical – this is the period when most of the young in the wild have died. And we need to get the two remaining clutches into captivity.
To follow the ducklings’ progress, and the team’s efforts to collect more clutches, read the daily updates on the blog.