Southern ground hornbill

Ground hornbills walk and look for food.

They eat insects, snails, frogs, lizards and snakes.

Southern ground hornbills hunt on foot, walking slowly across the ground for most of the day. They eat almost any small animal they can catch: insects and other small creatures with legs, snails, frogs and toads, and sometimes bigger animals such as snakes, lizards, rats, hares and tortoises.

Now and then they eat scraps from dead animals, and very rarely fruit and seeds. On hot days, they may rest for hours.

The IUCN gives a diet mainly of arthropods and, especially in the wet season, snails, frogs and toads, with larger prey such as snakes, lizards, rats, hares, squirrels or tortoises at times; carrion and associated insects are occasionally taken, fruit and seeds infrequently. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance calls them generalists that take any animal they can overcome.

Its fact sheet (after Kemp and Kemp 1980) says walking makes up about 70% of daytime activity (38% to 98%), at only 0.24 to 0.78 kilometers per hour; birds forage nearly all day in cool weather but may rest for up to six hours in the heat. The IUCN notes heat avoidance above about 26 °C.

Ground hornbills live in family groups.

In the morning, they call 'hoo hoo hoo hoo' very loudly.

Southern ground hornbills live in family groups, usually of 3 to 5 birds, with one main breeding pair and helpers, mostly males, from the family. The family shares a big home area, which it defends from other groups.

Each morning before they set off, the group calls with deep, booming notes, 'hoo hoo hoo hoo', which can carry up to 4.5 kilometers. Young birds often play: they chase each other and have tug-of-war games with sticks.

The IUCN describes groups of 2 to 9 members, rarely 12, with the dominant pair assisted by adult, mostly male, and immature helpers that defend the territory and provision the nest; genetic studies show that the breeding pair is not strictly monogamous (Theron et al. 2013). The Joburg Zoo calls it the largest cooperatively breeding bird species in the world.

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance describes deep, booming territorial calls given before groups fly down to forage about 30 minutes before sunrise, a four-note 'hoo hoo hoo hoo' that may carry 4.5 kilometers, flights chasing trespassers, bill-beating and wing-flashing displays at boundaries, food sharing that reinforces status, and play such as tugging feet and stick tug-of-war. Leopards and martial eagles prey on all ages.

There are fewer ground hornbills than before.

People help them by building safe nest boxes and raising chicks.

The southern ground hornbill is listed as vulnerable. The biggest danger is poison: hornbills that eat scraps left by hunters can swallow tiny pieces of lead from bullets, and some eat animals poisoned by pesticides. They also lose the big old trees they nest in, and some are hurt on electricity equipment or hunted and traded.

Because a family raises so few chicks, losses are hard to replace. Conservation groups build artificial nests, raise spare chicks by hand and release them, and teach people how to help.

BirdLife International assessed Bucorvus leadbeateri as Vulnerable (A4bcd) for the IUCN Red List (assessed 30 April 2025, published 2025). The global population is unquantified ('widespread and common but sparse'); South Africa's population was estimated at about 1,400 mature birds in 1992, perhaps half its historical size. The generation length is 26.4 years.

The IUCN names lead poisoning from bullet fragments in hunting offal as the primary threat, plus secondary poisoning from pesticides, rodenticides and poisoned carcasses, loss of large nest trees, grazing that leaves perhaps 10% of suitable habitat in Kenya, persecution after birds break windows attacking their reflections, hunting and trade, and electrocution on transformer boxes. The Mabula Ground-Hornbill Project monitors groups, hand-rears second-hatched chicks for release, installs artificial nests, covers windows and runs education.