All his life young Eli's mother has painstakingly fed and doted on him. There is no doubt she wants what's best for the 50-day-old southern ground hornbill - even if she is just a sock puppet manipulated by Joanne Meyer, one of the conservationists trying to save the species.
The birds once thrived from Eastern Cape to the equator. Now, the South African population can be found only in the KrugerNational Park and small pockets of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape. Their decline is due to habitat loss, poisoning and, oddly, their anger at seeing their own reflection in windows.
"At a school up in Limpopo the birds broke 150 windows in one morning," said Lucy Kemp, project manager at the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project.
Farmers and landowners, not amused by the hornbills' antics, often go on the rampage.
Fewer than 2000 birds are left in South Africa and are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.
The birds produce two eggs, but family groups can raise only a single chick so, after hatching, the other chick is left to die.
Teams from the Montecasino Bird Garden's Ground Hornbill Breeding Programme, in Gauteng, and the Mabula project, in Limpopo, are trying to save the species by rescuing the second chicks. After removing the bird from the nest and hand-rearing it, they release it into one of several "bush schools", where groups of about five birds teach the fledgling bush skills.
"It must be taught how to eat, how to kill a poisonous snake, how not to be stung by a scorpion, where to sleep safely at night, how to get away from a caracal. The group is so busy teaching that one [chick] that it cannot breed for a couple of years. All the energy goes into getting the chick past the age of five," said Kemp.
If all goes to plan, they are accepted into established groups.
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