logo

Welcome


AboutZoos, Since 2008





201222Sep10:54

Extinct’ birds hatch at Bris­tol Zoo

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 22 Sep­tem­ber 2012 | mod­i­fied 22 Sep­tem­ber 2012
Archived

One of the rarest birds in the world has been bred by keep­ers at Bris­tol Zoo Gardens.

Socorro doveA Socorro dove (Zenaida graysoni) chick has hatched and is thriv­ing in Bris­tol zoo, mark­ing a major suc­cess for the species which is extinct in the wild. It is the first time Socorro doves have suc­cess­fully bred at the Zoo in five years. The chick was one of two that hatched, but sadly one of them died at a young age.

The last recorded sight­ing of a Socorro dove in the wild was in 1972. Now there are around just 100 held in cap­tiv­ity in zoos around the world — includ­ing 25 birds in six UK zoos. Coor­di­nated con­ser­va­tion breed­ing of the birds by organ­i­sa­tions such as Bris­tol Zoo, which is involved with more than 100 coor­di­nated breed­ing pro­grammes for threat­ened wildlife species, has pre­vented the total extinc­tion of the species.

Sadly these birds now only exist in cap­tiv­ity, so to have this chick hatch and sur­vive 40 years after they were last seen in the wild is a great achievement
Nigel Simp­son, Bris­tol Zoo’s Cura­tor of birds »

The chick at Bris­tol Zoo has been raised by fos­ter birds — a pair of Euro­pean tur­tle doves — which have a strong track record of rais­ing healthy chicks. The pre­cious Socorro dove egg was placed in the tur­tle doves’ nest as the adult Socorro doves have a poor his­tory of incu­bat­ing eggs. Keep­ers mon­i­tored the chick via a hid­den cam­era to fol­low its progress, cap­tur­ing rare footage of these extremely endan­gered birds.

A short clip of the two chicks (one of which unfor­tu­nately later died):

Nigel Simp­son: “The fos­ter birds have done a fan­tas­tic job of rais­ing this very impor­tant chick and we are thrilled to say that another pair of fos­ter birds is now incu­bat­ing another Socorro dove egg which we hope will hatch soon.”

The chick is now fully fledged and can be seen in one of the aviaries near the zoo’s edu­ca­tion cen­tre. Bris­tol Zoo hopes the young bird, and any future chicks, will even­tu­ally be paired with Socorro doves from other UK zoos to con­tinue the vital cap­tive breed­ing pro­gramme for the species.

Socorro doves were native to the island of Socorro, 600 miles off the west­ern coast of Mex­ico. They died out after falling prey to a ris­ing num­ber of feral cats in the area. Over­graz­ing sheep also destroyed much of their for­est floor habi­tat and the birds were also hunted by humans for food.

The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at Bris­tol Zoo Gar­dens. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.

(Source: Bris­tol Zoo Gar­dens — News, 20.09.2012)

UN Biodiversity decade
WWF Stop Wildlife Crime
Fight for Flight campaign
End Ivory-funded Terrorism
Support Rewilding Europe
NASA State of Flux

Goal: 7000 tigers in the wild

Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

about zoos and their mis­sion regard­ing breed­ing endan­gered species, nature con­ser­va­tion, bio­di­ver­sity and edu­ca­tion, which of course relates to the evo­lu­tion of species.
Fol­low me on: