A Breeding Breakthrough for New Zealand’s Chubby Night Parrot

Chicks born by artificial insemination offer new hope for the endangered kākāpō.

BY ISAAC SCHULTZJULY 19, 2019

Kākāpō's recovery has been slow but steady. 

IT’S HARD OUT THERE FOR a kākāpō. These famously adorable and unusual parrots—chunky, flightless, nocturnal—are one of the many critically endangered species in New Zealand, but efforts to increase their population have been slow-going.

Kākāpōs once had no natural predators, but now must deal with rats, cats, stoats, and possums. The country is trying to eradicate these predators and help the unusual bird come back from its mid-1990s low of just 52 individuals, but encouraging kākāpōs to breed is an uphill battle. The birds mate only every several years, with the fruiting of the rimu, a native tree. On top of that, they’re plagued with defective sperm and high rates of infertility. Now, for the first time in a decade, the country’s Kākāpō Recovery Team announced successful artificial insemination (of three female birds, resulting in two chicks), a major breakthrough in staving off extinction.

Even though scientists have the genomes of every known individual, which helps them match up suitable breeding pairs, kākāpōs just don’t seem like they’re on board with the plan.

“Females are quite choosy. They want the best males with the best genes,” says Nicolas Dussex, a researcher with the Swedish Museum of Natural History.* “So you can’t force them to mate with a less than ideal male.”

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Endangered crested ibis chick hatched in China after mother bird undergoes artificial insemination

Bird’s mother underwent artificial insemination as part of a breeding programme to protect the species’ numbers

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 25 April, 2017, 1:30pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 25 April, 2017, 1:51pm 24 Apr 2017

The first crested ibis has hatched after its mother underwent artificial insemination as part of a programme in southwest China to protect the species’ numbers, according to a newspaper report.

The chick was born at a breeding station at Mount Emei in Sichuan province, the West China City Daily reported.

About 50 crested ibis were collected in Henan, Zhejiang and Shaanxi provinces last year and taken to the centre to take part in the breeding programme, according to the article.

The first egg was laid in March and finally hatched last week.

Staff had to crack open the top of the egg after the bird’s head got stuck.

The tiny chick has been placed in an incubator to help ensure its survival.
 

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World's first successful artificial insemination of southern rockhopper penguin

Date: June 28, 2016

Source: Kobe University

DNA tests have confirmed that one of the three southern rockhopper penguin chicks born at Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan between June 4 and 6 was conceived through artificial insemination. This is the result of a project led by Kaiyukan with the collaboration of Associate Professor KUSUNOKI Hiroshi (Kobe University Graduate School of Agricultural Science). It is the world's first successful case of a southern rockhopper penguin being conceived through artificial insemination.

Southern rockhopper penguins are a species of birds approximately 50cm in height which inhabit southern islands near Antarctica such as the Falkland Islands. They are on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a threatened species.

Kaiyukan and Associate Professor Kusunoki began their joint research in 2011, aiming to elucidate the breeding habits of southern rockhopper penguins and develop the technology for their artificial insemination. In spring 2015 the group obtained a fertilized egg, but the chick did not hatch, and DNA tests determined that the unborn chick was the result of natural reproduction.

This time multiple penguins were selected for breeding, and the group enlisted the cooperation of Tokyo Sea Life Park, where scientists had previously succeeded in breeding species through natural reproduction. At the end of April they obtained a healthy sperm sample from a male penguin at Tokyo Sea Life Park and transported it to Kaiyukan without loss of quality. At Kaiyukan they used blood tests to estimate the laying days of three female penguins and determine the best timing for artificial insemination.

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Japan hatches rare penguin chicks using artificial insemination

Wednesday May 25, 2016
05:01 PM GMT+8

A Japanese aquarium said today it had hatched two Humboldt penguin chicks after using artificial insemination, the first time the technique has been successfully deployed for the vulnerable species.

The two chicks were born early April after frozen then thawed sperm from a male penguin was used to inseminate a female penguin at the Shimonoseki Marine Science Museum in Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan.

“I was speechless when the babies were born safely thanks to the success of the artificial insemination,” Teppei Kushimoto, who is in charge of the penguins at the aquarium, told AFP.

The aquarium said it had taken four years of experiments for scientists to figure out how to collect, freeze, and correctly time the artificial insemination for the penguins.

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First test-tube baby penguin says hello to the world

By Eric PfeifferAugust 13, 2014 10:26 AMThe Sideshow

Officials hope the first penguin hatched via artificial insemination at SeaWorld in San Diego will help make strides …

To science, she’s simply known as “184.” But on the empirical cuteness scale, the world’s first test-tube penguin scores a “100.”

The still unnamed baby Magellanic penguin was hatched at SeaWorld in San Diego 12 weeks ago, but the first images of her were released to the public this week.

She’s the first penguin to be born using artificial insemination, a technique researchers say will help them increase diversity in the captive penguin population and help their studies of the creatures.

“The goal of our research center is to study a species’ reproductive biology, to learn as much as we can about that and use this to not only monitor the health of not only our zoological populations but wild populations as well,” said Sea World’s reproductive center Scientific Director Dr. Justine O’Brien.

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