The World of Birds, Africa's largest bird park, at the foot of Table Mountain, is under quarantine after several confirmed cases of bird flu.
Swans, ducks, ibises and now even blue cranes - the national bird - have joined the growing list of infected birds, the popular tourist site revealed this week.
This follows widespread culling of millions of chickens and ducks - two million in the Western Cape alone - as the H5N8 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus takes its toll. It is a strain of bird flu not seen before in South Africa, and appears to be out of control.
"We are at the heart of the outbreak at the moment. It is a very sad and stressful time," said World of Birds general manager Hendrik Louw.
Louw said the park remained open and urgently needed donations to help contain the outbreak, which is not harmful to humans.
He said bio-security control measures implemented after the first case was reported in the Boland town of Wellington were not enough to prevent wild birds entering the park and infecting its population.
"We could only control this at ground level and had no chance against free-flying wild birds that pose the greatest risk," Louw said.
Staff have spent R10,000 on diagnostic tests and used nearly 1000 litres of disinfectant in the past 10 days...