On the trail of the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill: finding hope in Togo’s last refuge for wild nature
- IBCP
- 6 hours ago
- 7 min read
22 October, 2025
By Henry Luedtke

IBCP researchers Lin-Ernni Mikégraba Kaboumba and Brandon Franta in Fazao-Malfakassa National Park. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
We stood motionless in the shade of an acacia tree. Our eyes scanned the shallow sea of savanna grass while our ears strained to reach beyond the hills for bird calls. In my notebook I marked: Barbet, Coucal, Tinkerbird, Turaco. Everything was routine, including the lack of Abyssinian Ground Hornbill (Bucorvus abyssinicus). Suddenly, a flash of black and white erupted from a tree. Could it be?
Beautiful but disappointing, I watched my colleague, Lin-Ernni Mikégraba Kaboumba, follow with his binoculars the shape of a hornbill far too small.
Pied or Piping? I asked Kaboumba, without speaking.
Pied Hornbill, he mouthed back to me.
Tireless and perceiving more wildlife than I thought possible, my friend’s presence gave me strength. We knew this would not be easy. And we knew the bird was out there, somewhere. A rare breeze quieted the swarm of gnats around our heads and expectation filled my chest. We listened in the wind for the deep, prehistoric call of the ground hornbill.

Female Abyssinian Ground Hornbill (Bucorvus abyssinicus). Photo by Sylvain Gatti.
Rustling leaves, silence, then gnats, again. I could not help but feel frustration, and some sadness. The bird ought to be here. Not for our sake but for Togo’s landscape. It was not long ago that the bird was a common sight in this area. Kaboumba signaled it was time for audio-playback. I removed the speaker without excitement. Was this the nearest I would come to the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill? A poor copy of a sound, echoing mechanically from a plastic box? I thought of the last of the Hawaiian honeyeaters, the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō (Moho braccatus), whose call was saved digitally while the species disappeared. Our recording sounded across the savanna without answer.

IBCP team members looking north into the expanse of Fazao-Malfakassa National Park. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
While still common in some parts of the eastern portion of its range, many local populations, especially in West Africa, are on the brink, leading the IUCN to recently uplist the species to Vulnerable. For example, in neighboring Ghana and Benin, small populations remain only in Mole and Pendjari National Parks respectively. And in Togo, the species was thought to be all but extirpated until 2024 when members of the International Bird Conservation Partnership (IBCP) spotted a group of three inside Fazao Maflakassa National Park (FMNP). This exciting observation inspired our exploratory survey of the species in FMNP, Togo’s most important protected area and last refuge for a once iconic species.

Lin-Ernni Mikégraba Kaboumba surveying a river that had reports of ground hornbill presence. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
Since one of the birds seen in 2024 was likely a juvenile, we wondered just how many truly remain in FMNP’s roughly 2,000km2 of rugged savanna and dense gallery forest. With generous support from the African Bird Club, IBCP was able to organize a small team of conservation biologists for a three-month field season this summer, 2025. We began our study in the wet season, when birds call more frequently and any sighting would be an encouraging indicator of a resident population. But a lack of information was an even greater challenge than the wildness of the terrain. So little is known about the species’ life history outside of captivity and past sightings are sparse. The ecosystem of FMNP also remains to this day largely unstudied. Although, bird surveys such as these are revealing much about the biodiversity of the park and the nature of its threats.
Nevertheless, we were going into the unknown in many ways but with the understanding that any sign of the bird would be priceless information for the conservation of the species. And so, this summer we began searching in ideal habitat zones and past sighting locations, eventually traversing over 173km worth of transects through the park and conducting 39 point-counts lasting a half-hour each. We also waited in hiding at several of the most promising locations for multiple days. But given the size of the park and rarity of the bird, we knew we needed the help of local residents.

IBCP researchers interviewing the chief and elders of a village on the border of FMNP. Photo by Yendoubouam Kourdjouak.
We visited as many villages surrounding the park as we could, searching for people of all backgrounds who had personal knowledge of the bird. While we met many who had never seen the ground hornbill, most of our village meetings nevertheless produced fascinating discussions about the behavior and cultural associations of the bird. We documented, likely for the first time, the relationship different Togolese villages and people have with the ground hornbill, shedding valuable insight on the cultural and tangible value of the bird. And, most importantly, we were able to interview 46 people who had reliable observation accounts of the bird in FMNP. These observation points are critical for modeling the distribution of the bird and guiding field surveys.
While our wet season survey did not capture any direct observations of the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill in FMNP, this was not totally unexpected. The village surveys on the other hand were a surprising success. Understanding local people’s human-nature relationships at both the ecological and cultural level is an essential foundation to planning successful conservation actions, especially in FMNP, which faces a multitude of threats to its biodiversity. For example, we now understand poaching to be a complex issue involving differing and changing cultural taboos. And the extent of illegal logging is more pervasive than previously thought.

Illegal logging in FMNP destroys ground hornbill and other birds’ nesting habitat. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
While interviews can only teach us so much about the bird itself, we now have a much better understanding of where and what to look for. For example, our data show a strong correlation with the bird’s presence and proximity to water sources, with many reports of the ground hornbill “fishing” in the pools and rivers of FMNP. It was also encouraging to learn that far more people than we anticipated knew of or had seen the bird. 16 people reported seeing the bird in the last 5 years, with several exciting reports from 2024 and 2025 of groups of birds 5-7 strong. Sightings also came from all sectors of the national park.

Cutting and incinerating trees for Togo’s illegal charcoal industry has destroyed much of the protected areas in the north of the country, which were previously the sites of successful ecotourism operations, and is increasingly destroying habitat in Fazao-Malfakassa National Park. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
While further data is needed to estimate abundance, there already appears to be more Abyssinian Ground Hornbills than we thought remaining in Fazao-Malfakassa National Park. Reports also indicate they may be reproducing successfully, which may not be the case in other isolated, remnant Abyssinian Ground Hornbill populations, such as that in Ghana’s Mole National Park.

Honey production can be a lucrative business, which the Togolese government encourages through apiculture, but the “quick and dirty” way to make money from honey is to simply locate wild honey in trees, cut down the trees, and take the honey. This is illegal and unsustainable, but nevertheless is an extremely common practice in Fazao-Malfakassa National Park that drives the destruction of many mature trees with cavities that might otherwise provide nesting sites to large cavity-nesting birds such as Abyssinian Ground-Hornbills. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
The IBCP team will continue to monitor Togo’s Abyssinian Ground Hornbill. Another field survey is planned for the dry season of 2026. But it seems certain that the bird will disappear from Togo entirely if the threats facing FMNP are not quickly dealt with. Illegal logging and unlawful herding and farming within the park are, along with poaching, the major threats affecting not only the ground hornbill but the biodiversity of FMNP as a whole. It is essential that awareness of the bird’s plight is raised both within Togo and internationally. It was encouraging to hear that 91% of interviewees said that the conservation of the bird is important. But while most of those interviewed thought the bird to be in decline, many more still had no knowledge of the bird at all, with only the eldest individuals of some villages recalling the bird. Baselines shift quickly and knowledge can be lost tragically fast. But we can also remember and reconnect with nature, forging new relationships that better foster human-wildlife coexistence. To this end IBCP team members will attend this year’s CoP for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, advocating for the listing of African hornbills in response to the problematic international trade in these species.

The water source near the 2024 sighting at which we sat in wait. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
While it was concerning to see the threats to FMNP in such detail, we were also impressed by nature’s resilience. Many other rare birds were observed in place of the ground hornbill, such as the threatened Bateleur, Martial Eagle, and Hooded Vulture, as well as the rare Great Blue Turaco. While on the trail of the Abyssinian Hornbill we stepped in the footprints of forest elephants and listened to the call of baboons at dusk. For now, Fazao-Malfakassa National Park remains full of life and wildness. And somewhere the call of the Abyssinian Ground Hornbill still resounds. This survey gave our team knowledge and hope to continue the fight to preserve a species that symbolizes the beauty and diversity of Togo’s nature.

An Endangered Bateleur (Terathopius ecaudatus), with its distinctive, strange flight profile, seen soaring over FMNP. Photo by Henry Luedtke.
This ongoing project is coordinated by IBCP in collaboration with the University of Lomé and supported by African Bird Club’s Conservation Fund. We are grateful to many people for their assistance with this project, and here would like to pay special thanks to the people and chiefs of the villages we visited in Mô, Sotouboua, and Blitta prefectures for their kind hospitality. We are also very grateful to the park rangers (ecoguardes) who aided us on our surveys and are continuing the fight to protect Togo’s natural heritage.

Male Abyssinian Ground Hornbill. Photo by Dick Daniels.