Save World Famous Kuimba Shiri Bird Park Zimbabwe

Help Save Kuimba Shiri Bird Park The Kuimba Shiri Bird Park outside Harare in Zimbabwe, in the heart of Africa, urgently needs your financial help.

The Park has been through some very tough times in the past 27 years in Zimbabwe, but has managed to stay alive through the support of local and international tourists. But now, like thousands of other tourism destinations around the world, they are being brought to their knees.

Tourism traffic, especially international tourists which was their primary source of income, has dropped by 95%, essentially obliterated entirely. And because of strict lockdown measures being taken in Zimbabwe to halt the spread of COVID, even local tourists are now few and far between.

The park was forced to close for nearly 5 months, and only now, in August, are they being allowed to open up slowly to local tourists, who drive out from the capital city Harare, to visit on the weekends and enjoy a meal, and to watch their magnificent birds do their flying displays.

To compound the problem even further, Zimbabwe is going through an extremely difficult time politically and economically. A crashing economy has caused foreign currency to be practically unobtainable, and the inflation rate was recently reported by Bloomberg as being over 700% in July (2020).

In addition, it is now August 2020 in Southern Africa, and spring is around the corner there. Kuimba Shiri is entering it’s busiest time of the year, with lots of birds starting to breed. This always means many young hawks, eagles, flacons, and owls and other birds being brought into the park, usually after having fallen from their nests or after having their nests destroyed. With your help, the dedicated staff at Kuimba Shiri will raise and release all the wild birds that they can in the months ahead, with the aim of replenishing their local birdlife populations.

They also need to do urgent repairs and maintenance on their aviaries, water-bird features and various other departments.

But the forced closure of the park for the past 5 months has been financially devastating. Gary and his wife have had to use all of their remaining capital to keep their birds and animals fed and their staff salaries paid. Together with their loyal employees who have worked so diligently with them for many years to help them save so many birds and other wild animals, they are all now in a desperate financial situation.

Kuimba Shiri Bird Park is urgently asking for your help to survive.

More information about the park can be read below, and please watch the video on this page with the interview with Gary Stafford, founder of the Kuimba Shiri Bird Park. More videos can be found on YouTube by searching for “Kuimba Shiri Bird Park”.

Updates will be posted here soon, please check back, and please look for the Kuimba Shiri pages on FaceBook and Instagram under “Kuimba Shiri Bird Park”.

This fundraiser is the official - and only - fundraiser for the park. It was established on July 18th 2020 in the UK by Brenda Holden, the sister of Gary Stafford who is the founder of Kuimba Shiri. All funds raised will go directly to Kuimba Shiri Bird Park and will ensure that Gary and his team can continue their mission to save, rehabilitate, and release the hundreds of birds, mostly raptors (hawks, eagles, owls, and falcons) that are brought to their sanctuary each year.

We would greatly appreciate your support.  Have a look at our website http://kuimbashiribirdpark.com