Two Chicks In The Park Prosper
Posted by Michelle Moquin on July 25th, 2010
This one is for all my readers in Guam:
One of world’s most endangered species, Guam kingfishers live on in zoos in struggle to survive
Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo has two chicks being raised by different parents
A mated pair of Guam Micronesian kingfishers, one of the most severely endangered animal species in the world, laid two fertile eggs this spring deep inside a hollowed-out palm log in a special breeding room of the Lincoln Park Zoo bird house. Keepers promptly stole one of the eggs.
The parents incubated and hatched one egg in the hollow log June 3 and now rear the chick there. The other egg hatched June 5 inside an incubation machine in a lab, where the chick now lives, fed by keepers from tweezers protruding beneath the beak of an over-sized kingfisher hand puppet.
Taking the second egg is standard procedure in 20 American zoos that for 25 years have struggled to save the bird from extinction. Guam kingfisher pairs often lay two eggs. In nature the stronger of the two kingfisher chicks almost always kills its nest sibling, either by violence or simply by out-competing the other one for food, starving it to death.
When there are only 132 individuals of a bird species left in the world, biologists want to hatch every fertile egg laid. Lincoln Park’s successfully hatched Guam kingfisher chicks represent the 133rd and 134th living members of their species.
In 1985, a consortium of U.S. zoos went to Guam, the U.S.-owned Pacific island protectorate, to capture the island’s last 29 wild native kingfishers – brilliantly colored blue and orange, robin-sized birds – to start a captive breeding rescue effort.
Shortly after World War II, an invasive species of brown tree snakes crawled aboard an ocean freighter at some South Seas island port and crawled off in Guam. With no natural enemies, the snake soon established itself and ended up exterminating many of the island’s native bird species.
“Nobody had ever studied the life cycle of wild kingfishers on Guam before they began to disappear,” said Megan Ross, Lincoln Park’s vice president for animal collections, explaining the difficulty of trying to create optimal conditions for the birds to reproduce and thrive in captivity.
By the 1990s, the zoos had about 60 of the birds, but, despite a relatively rapid hatch rate, many mysteriously died as young adults in the 2- to 4-year-old age range. The population remained at that level until the last few years, when growing knowledge improved their care of the bird, said Beth Bahner, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s species survival coordinator for the Guam kingfisher.
Among the key improvements, she said, were realizing that the meat-eating kingfishers had to have lizards in their diet, not just insects and chopped-up mice, and perfecting hand-rearing processes.
“We keep a towel draped over the brooder machine to keep it dark inside and simulate the dark nest cavity the parent-reared chicks are raised in,” said Elizabeth Andersen, zoological manager at Lincoln Park’s bird house.
“When it comes time to feed it, we turn off the room lights and turn on one inside the machine so that the bird can’t see our faces and imprint on us. If the first animal it sees after opening its eyes is a human, it will think it is human and will have trouble the rest of its life identifying with other kingfishers.”
Several days ago the hand-reared chick was still too young to have opened its eyes. Keeper Giana Giffre opened the brooder door and found it sitting in a toilet-paper-padded cup as she reached in with a tweezerful of chopped mouse and lizard meat and bits of mealworm and crickets.
She tapped the chick’s closed bill with the tweezers, as a parent would with its bill, and the chick gulped the food.
“We feed it roughly half its body weight each day,” Giffre said. She used the hand puppet kingfisher head, which was sculpted by another keeper.
The chick will remain in the darkened brooder until it is about 35 days old and has all its feathers, said Andersen. That’s when they naturally leave their darkened nests, soon left alone as the parents go into a new breeding cycle.
Getting a male and female to breed is more complicated than simply putting them together, Ross said.
“Sometimes they just don’t like each other and become very aggressive,” she said. “Some are what we call ‘roommates.’ They get along beautifully, but their relationship never gets beyond friendship.”
Lincoln Park, which joined the zoo consortium in 1995, has had 40 fertilized Guam kingfisher eggs, Bahner said, a good record. Brookfield Zoo, which was in the consortium from the start, has had 64 fertilized eggs.
The goal is to put captive-bred birds back in the wild, though that may be impossible for the foreseeable future on Guam, where a few mating pairs are held in a well-protected captive breeding center. Millions of brown tree snakes still live on the island, defying all efforts to eradicate them.
“Releasing the Guam kingfishers on Guam will have to remain in the distant future,” Bahner said. “But in the meantime, we might find another suitable island to let them go wild.”
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Your Government: I will get back to you in regards to the Mariana Trench.
Lara: Perhaps I can help. Not everyone who asks to go is necessarily taken immediately. From what you said in your comment a year ago, perhaps there is something that you are destined to do before you leave. As far as contact with your BFF’s, I can not say that I know where they are presently.
Anonymous: Thanks for the article. Now that summer is here, these are good things to know.
From the Desk of Nancy Pelosi: Thanks. Good info for my readers that are on unemployment.
Yamamoto: Thanks for the addition.
Emily: Funny. Maybe for some but not for this girl. :)
Evelyn: Thanks for checking in. Happy that you and Harris had a lovely time. How was the night club? I love a good club – I HOPE the music and the dancing was fantastic. Can Harris get down with it? Do tell…were those sweet lips kissed?
Hey Zen Lill: Have a great Sunday!
That goes to all of my readers too!
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my ‘loyal’(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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July 25th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Hafa adai
Thanks Michelle for highlighting our bird problem. So many of us have grown up without ever seeing the beauty of the many species of birds that once occupied our island.
I want to alert those that the government is conducting secret testing again. And using firing practice alerts to keep up from observing what they are doing. Here is the latest such alert.
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Warning for Warning Area 517 This Week
Written by News Release
Sunday, 25 July 2010 18:02
Guam – Guam News
Guam – The Navy will conduct training on Warning Area-517 from Monday through Friday, July 26-30 from 7 a.m.-midnight.
The general public especially fisherman, commercial pilots and marine tour operators are advised to stay clear from these areas during the times and dates indicated.
W-517 is an irregular shaped polygon comprising of 14,000 square nautical miles of airspace that begins south of Guam and extends south-southwest in international waters.
W-517 supports surface and aerial gunnery, missiles, and laser exercises. This will affect fishing in the vicinity of Santa Rosa Reef and Galvez Bank. W-517 is contained within the following coordinates: 13° 10″N/144° 30″E, 13° 10″N/144° 42″E, 12° 50″N/144° 45″E, 11° 00″N/144° 45″E, 11° 00″N/143° 00″E, 11° 45″N/143° 00″E, 12° 50″N/144° 30″E.
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So we are being kept way away from their doings.
Peter
July 25th, 2010 at 11:39 am
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
July 25th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Michelle
I can not believe that you answered me. I hope whatever I am “destined to do” will occur soon. I am anxious to travel the stars. I envied Howie and Al. They must have fulfilled their destinies and left. I will be as patient as you say I should and I will do as much pro bona work as I can.
Lara
July 25th, 2010 at 11:48 am
I’ve learned that the people you care most
about in life are taken from you too soon
and all the less important ones
just never go away.
July 25th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Here is another example of corporate lies. The airlines are always telling us how much money they are losing to justify the absurd charges for additional things that use to be included in the cost of an air fare. Now here is the profit that Continental in one quarter.
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Continental Announces $233M Q2 Profit
Written by News Release
Sunday, 25 July 2010 18:06
Guam – Guam News
Guam – Continental Airlines is reporting a second quarter 2010 net income of $233 million ($1.46 diluted earnings per share). Excluding $24 million
of merger-related costs and other special charges, Continental recorded second quarter net income of $257 million ($1.60 diluted earnings per share).
Operating income for the second quarter of 2010 was $328 million, up $482 million compared to the same period of 2009.
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Lies is what they give us while they pick us clean
Aalberts
July 25th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
I’m still looking for Zen Lill to come forward with her pics. Well, Zen Lill where are the pics? Your fans want to know.
Larry
PS: You can address me personally, you know.
July 25th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
“She strikes a pose like the statute of Venus.
It grabs the eyes and leaves one breathless.
Has there ever been a more graceful and desirable silhouette
on a beauty unaware she has such a magnificent asset?
She strikes a sensual pose as if unaware of the power of her presence.
Without her royal jewels, but regal even in their absence.”
Then he silently ponders:
Does she smile knowing I will find it irresistible?
Does she know it will fill my mind with lustful adjectives; carnal, coital…
Now that he is permitted to lust for her
He can no longer play the role of uninterested actor
So when he sees her as her Prince, Protector, and Lover.
He cannot subdue his carnal, coital desires for her.
What will her mood be when they are once again together,
Now that they are both free to lust for each other.
Will they come together seeking to make up for the lost ardor?
Or will she send him to seek another for his altar?
July 25th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Larry, I meant no disrespect in not mentioning you by name. Be patient…I have a life, and a busy one at that, so they’ll be coming round the mountain when they come…!
Mischa, a great Sunday to you, too! luv, Zen Lill
July 25th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
I like this one.
Vitamin D boosts the brain
Vitamin D is more than just the sunshine vitamin–it’s also brain food, and a new study shows how it can help seniors stay sharp and smart.
Researchers tested the D levels of 1,000 seniors between the ages of 66 and 99 and split them into three groups: deficient, insufficient, or sufficient. If you’ve been reading House Calls, you know where most people ended up– 65 percent fell into either the “deficient” or “insufficient” categories.
Their loss, because the study found that the seniors who had the highest levels of D did the best on tests that measured executive function–that’s the ability to think, reason and make decisions.
The seniors with sufficient D were also able to think quicker, according to the study published in the Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.
Stronger executive function and better thinking skills add up to a lower risk for dementia and other mental disorders, so if you’re not doubling up on D, what are you waiting for?
Of course, seniors aren’t the only ones who should be watching their D levels. Everyone needs this crucial hormone–but some of us need it more than others.
Like diabetics–because another new study finds that low levels of D can cause the disease to spiral out of control.
Researchers measured the D levels of 124 diabetics, and broke them down into four groups: normal, mildly deficient, moderately deficient, or severely deficient.
Once again, “normal” was not the norm. In fact, 91 percent fell into one of the three levels of deficiency–and more than a third were severely deficient in D. And according to the study presented at a recent Endocrine Society meeting, those with the worst deficiencies also had the least control over their diabetes.
D deficiencies aren’t limited to seniors and diabetics– most Americans in every category are also missing out. Big mistake, because as I’ve told you before, vitamin D can help strengthen your bones, boost your immune system and fight major diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.
Vitamin D can even help you live longer.
The only question now is, how should you get it?
Glad you asked–because another new study says you should take a supplement, since millions of Americans live in areas where it’s impossible to make enough D from sunlight.
Researchers designed a computer program to calculate the sun exposure needed for the body to create vitamin D in Miami and Boston during four points in the year: January, April, July, and October.
They found that Bostonians could get 400 IU of D in summer by exposing 25 percent of the body to the sun for between three and eight minutes a day. But in winter, these hardy New Englanders could sit naked in the snow all day long and never get even that tiny amount of D, according to the study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Of course, that wasn’t a problem in Miami–where the sun is always shining and the skin is usually exposed, and not always tastefully. The researchers said Miamians can get those 400 IUs of D in just a few minutes a day, any time of year.
But let’s face it–400 IUs is barely the beginning. You need much more than that, and you need it consistently and reliably all year long, no matter what you live.
The only way to do that is with a safe, natural vitamin D3 supplement. And now, even the supplement-hating mainstream can agree with that.
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Oh, and Zen Lill I am not too busy to get on board the show me something train.
Hector
July 25th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
LITTLE MISS MUFFET sat on a tuffet,
Her clothes all tattered and torn.
It wasn’t the spider that crept up beside her,
But Little Boy Blue and his horn.
July 26th, 2010 at 9:57 am
[...] Peter: I’m sure you have something to say about my write today. In regards to yesterday, it is really a shame. I HOPE that with the help of the park, these birds will be able to be removed from the endangered list and be able to be returned to their homes. Of course the brown tree snake issue needs to be rectified too. Hafa adai. [...]