PRAGUE — Zookeepers in Prague infrequently must develop into puppeteers to avoid wasting new child birds rejected via their oldsters. This was once the case for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick hatched 3 weeks in the past.
Chook keeper AntonĂn Vaidl stated Thursday that once a dummy egg disappeared from the nest, it signaled to keepers that the fogeys weren’t in a position to deal with their two young children, regardless of doing so in 2022 and 2023.
The primary-born is being saved in a field and fed the usage of a puppet designed to imitate a father or mother chook, whilst some other is anticipated to hatch in the following few days.
Vaidl stated the puppet is wanted to verify the chook will be capable to breeding, which it gained’t if it will get used to human interplay.
He defined that the puppet doesn’t need to be an ideal copy of an grownup chook since the chick responds to sure alerts, such because the faded orange shade on its featherless head and neck.
Lesser yellow-headed vultures reside within the wild in Latin The usa and Mexico. Prague Zoo is one among most effective 3 zoos in Europe that breed them.
Previously, the park effectively carried out this remedy to avoid wasting the significantly endangered Javan inexperienced magpie and two rhinoceros hornbill chicks. The puppet-feeding method is acceptable for birds that reside in pairs.
“The process has been running smartly,” Vaidl stated. “We’ll see what occurs with the vultures.”
