Captive
population of critically endangered bird doubles with the birth of nine chicks
Mon 25
Mar 2019 05.48 GMTLast modified on Mon 25 Mar
2019 16.44 GMT
The
captive population of Australia’s most unique critically endangered bird has
doubled with the birth of nine plains-wanderer chicks, helped out by a feather
duster, a heat lamp and a lot of cotton wool.
The
chicks were born to two pairs and hatched within 24 hours of each other at
Werribee open range zoo in Victoria last
week.
Within
four days, the zoo director Glen Holland said, the chicks were eating crickets
“the size of beans” and zooming around their enclosure “like bumblebees”.
“Once
they are hatched and warm and dry they run off and fend for themselves – they
are very independent,” Holland said.
One of
the clutches was hatched in an incubator and raised under the paternal care of
a feather duster after one of the fathers, a four-month-old who was daunted at
raising his first chicks, stopped sitting on them.
Like
emus, male plains-wanderers bear responsibility for child rearing and stay with
the chicks, while the female can move on to another mate soon after laying her
eggs.
“They
have been snuggling up to the feather duster, pushing up into the feathers,”
Holland said.
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