Hornbill Experts Join Forces. (5 November, 1996)

An international hornbill network is now only a peck away. Thai hornbill specialist Dr Pilai Poonswad is currently in South Africa on a month-long sabbatical working with Transvaal Museum bird specialist Dr Alan Kemp to make the international database a reality. 'The 56 species of hornbills found worldwide are endemic to Africa and Asia,' the co-author of an international reference work on these birds said last week.

Dr Poonswad has run a 15-year study of hornbills in the Khao Yai National Park in Thailand and has travelled widely through the country in search of hornbills. Of Dr Kemp, the leading Southern African hornbill expert, she said: 'I first heard of him in 1980 and had to wait another ten years before I met him.' The pair have been collaborating on the establishment of a world hornbill network since the first international conference on the conservation of Asian hornbills and their habitats in 1992. Earlier this year she arranged a second conference on the same subject.

While in South Africa Dr Poonswad and Dr Kemp will do further work on making the world hornbill network a reality. Dr Poonswad is particularly excited about incorporating the vocalisation programme developed in South Africa as part of the network and has spent much time in Pretoria working on it. Staff reporter. Courtesy of the Pretoria News.