Wader Quest has always enjoyed tremendous support from South Africa. This is mainly due to four people, Peter and Jenny Sharland and Sue and Owen Oertli. Peter and Sue are brother and sister and together they have been promoting Wader Quest in South Africa since 2013 and now organise Wader Quest South Africa.
When Elis and Rick Simpson travelled to South Africa during their initial fundraising adventure, the two families clubbed together and sponsored their expenses, an extremely generous gesture that made a huge difference to how much Rick and Elis could do on their limited funds. You can read about the adventures the group had together in the book A Quest for Waders.
Sue has been organising the Wader Conservation World Watch (WCWW) on Wader Quest’s behalf in southern Africa drawing in observers from 5 surrounding countries, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as all over South Africa itself. The results have been stunning, boosting the event’s numbers considerably.
In 2020 WCWW7 the Fynbos Buttonquail Turnix hottentottus was observed during the event for the first time and this led WQSA to decide that they would embark on a campaign to raise awareness about the species, which is considered to be Endangered and about which little is known. They have produced a flyer (see below) with a view to distribute it in the Western Cape via the Overberg Eco Rangers (OER), as part of this campaign