Shoebill

Shoebills eat big fish.

Their favorite is a long, slippery fish called a lungfish. They also eat frogs, snakes and small turtles.

A shoebill's favorite food is the lungfish, a big, slippery fish. It also eats catfish, tilapia, water snakes, frogs, monitor lizards, turtles and even young crocodiles.

It hunts by standing perfectly still or wading slowly. When it spots prey, it lunges forward and collapses into the water, bill first. It comes up with the fish and a mouthful of plants, then shakes its head to drop the plants but keep the fish.

Shoebills are carnivores whose diet is dominated by lungfish (Protopterus), bichirs (Polypterus), catfish, tilapia and water snakes, with occasional frogs, monitor lizards, turtles, young crocodiles, mollusks and carrion. Britannica describes the clog-shaped bill as an adaptation for catching and holding large, slippery lungfish.

Animal Diversity Web describes two hunting methods, 'stand and wait' and 'wade and walk slowly', ending in a 'collapse': the head and neck shoot forward and the bird overbalances into the water. It must regain its stance before trying again. Vegetation scooped up with the prey is shaken out by swinging the head from side to side, and the sharp-edged bill grips and cuts the catch.

Shoebills like to be on their own.

They are usually quiet. But they can clap their beaks together. Clatter, clatter! It sounds like a drum.

Shoebills are loners. Even a male and female who are partners often fish on opposite sides of their shared territory. They are calm around people: researchers have come within about 2 meters of a shoebill on its nest, and it simply stared back.

Shoebills are mostly silent, but they clap their bills together to make a loud, hollow clattering sound, especially when greeting a mate. In Zambia, one local name for the shoebill means 'the one who drums on wood'.

Shoebills are solitary and are almost never seen in groups; they forage near one another only when food is scarce, and members of a pair often feed at opposite ends of their territory. Most stay put while foraging is good, though some make seasonal movements between nesting and feeding areas.

Communication is largely by bill-clattering, a rapid clapping of the mandibles that resonates as a loud, hollow sound; adults clatter when greeting at the nest, and African Parks recorded chicks clattering at three weeks old. Adults also give a whining or 'mooing' call and chicks hiccup when begging. In Zambia the local name, mapumambao, means 'the one who drums on wood'. Researchers report the birds are calm around people and simply stare back.

There are not many shoebills left.

Their swamps are getting smaller. In Zambia, local people guard shoebill nests to keep the chicks safe.

The shoebill is Vulnerable. Only a few thousand grown-up birds are left in the wild, and their number is falling. Swamps are being turned into farms and cattle pastures, people disturb nests, and eggs and chicks are taken illegally to sell.

People are helping. In Zambia's Bangweulu Wetlands, local community members are paid to guard shoebill nests day and night during the nesting season. A special center there also raises chicks and releases them back into the wild.

The IUCN lists the shoebill as Vulnerable (global assessment, 2018), with an estimated 3,300 to 5,300 mature individuals and a decreasing trend; ZSL's EDGE program gives 5,000 to 8,000 birds in total. Threats named by EDGE and African Parks include habitat destruction and degradation, pollution, nest disturbance, hunting and capture of eggs and chicks for the illegal live-bird trade, all worsened by the bird's slow breeding.

In Bangweulu, Zambia, African Parks began a Shoebill Nest Protection Programme in 2012 that employs community members as round-the-clock nest guardians. In May 2022 it opened a captive rearing and rehabilitation facility, where 'spare' second eggs are hatched and chicks raised with shoebill hand puppets, so they do not imprint on people, before release with GPS trackers.