The Knysna loeries have returned to Featherbed Nature Reserve after it’s extensive rehabilitation.
Following the damage caused by the fires in 2017 which burned 95% of the reserve, Featherbed began an extensive rehabilitation of the area.
‘Despite the fact that almost everything had burned to the ground, we started to notice that new seedlings began sprouting within weeks of the inferno – and to us, they looked magnificent,’ said their website.
Six months after the fire, a team began the laborious process of rehabilitation, including the removal of alien rooikrans seedlings which had been prolific in the area before the fire.
‘Although we began following a programme of cutting down as many rooikrans as we could in the early 80s, the invasion proved almost too much of a challenge – so the fires came as something of a mixed blessing,’ their website states.
https://twitter.com/UlrichJvV/status/1017332815585783809
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The team also did some planting to speed up ground coverage.
Alongside removing alien species, the programme gave Featherbed’s hired horticulturist a chance to catalogue plants as they began appearing with 300 species recorded in the reserve.
The restoration allowed Featherbed to re-open its doors to visitors at the end of 2018.
‘Nature allowed us to do this,’ Featherbed’s Nicole Tunmer, told the Herald. ‘As soon as the Knysna loerie returned, we knew that nature had restored itself.’
Image source: Cederberg Africa/ Twitter
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