Guam Kingfishers are extinct in the wild. Two chicks hatched at the National Aviary will play an important part in their future.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Guam Kingfisher has been extinct in the wild for four decades, and there are only about 140 left in the world. But the National Aviary in Pittsburgh is part of a project to rebuild their population.
Two Guam Kingfisher chicks, known locally as sihek, hatched in the National Aviary's breeding center last month. The aviary says the chicks are the latest to join the Sihek Recovery Project, which plans on introducing the species on the island of Palmyra Atoll later this year.
After hatching, the chicks quickly took to the air while still in their incubator, hopping on a flight at the Pittsburgh International Airport with senior aviculturist Brianna Crane, bound for the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas City. Even the birds needed to go through TSA to fly, and the aviary said agents were careful with the precious cargo.
The two chicks made it safely to the zoo, where they'll join another Guam Kingfisher who hatched at the aviary earlier this year.
Guam Kingfishers have been extinct in the wild for four decades, the aviary says. Their population was devastated when invasive brown tree snakes arrived on Guam. Biologists rescued the remaining population and the birds are now under the care of an Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan. The aviary says the population has grown "considerably" while maintaining genetic diversity.
The Sihek Recovery Project is made up of several AZA-accredited zoos, including the National Aviary, that have the long-term goal of releasing and growing a Guam Kingfisher population in the wild, seeing their status downgraded from extinct in the wild to critically endangered. It would make them only the third species ever to achieve that status downgrade, the aviary says.
The two new chicks from the National Aviary represent hope that the species will someday thrive in the wild again. After DNA testing to figure out their sex, they were given names in CHamoru, which is the language of the Mariana Islands indigenous people. The female was named Långet, which means "heaven" or "sky" and the male was named Mames, which means "sweet."
