Extinct in the Wild: can these 5 bird species come back from captivity? - via Mark Raines

10 Mar 2020

In the light of the successful reintroduction of Guam Rail, we consider the prospects of the five remaining bird species categorised as Extinct in the Wild – all of which face unique barriers to re-entry.

Guam Kingfisher © Guam Department of Agriculture

By James Lowen

Extinction is forever. Or is it? Granted, there’s no way to reincarnate the Dodo Rapphus cucullatus. Yet five species that have vanished from forests or skies still survive in captivity. They may live behind bars, but they at least exist. Classified as ‘Extinct in the Wild’, these ‘lucky few’ have at least a smidgeon of hope of joining Guam Rail Hypotaenidia owstoni and California Condor Gymnogyps californianus in coming back from beyond the brink. So what plans are there to reintroduce the quintet?

Conservation breeding programmes – ex-situ fostering of a species’ population, usually in zoos or aviaries – have become an increasingly valuable tool thanks to what BirdLife International’s Nigel Collar and Stuart Butchart described in a 2014 scientific paper as “the increasing rapprochement between aviculture and conservation organisations”. The duo identified 257 bird species where captive breeding should be contemplated, including 13 where they judged it ‘necessary’.

Reintroductions are complex, requiring long-term commitment from a network of organisations. The birds featured here – three from Pacific islands, two Brazilian – tell different stories. Two are benefiting from painstaking recent reintroductions, with another planned for 2021. But there’s no date set for the others.

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Great Indian Bustard Eggs Being Collected to Kick-Start Captive Breeding

The critically endangered bird is down to just 160-odd individuals, most of them surviving in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan.

26/JUN/2019

The great Indian bustard has been in deep trouble for a while. Once found across India’s grasslands and dry landscapes, the critically endangered bird is now down to just 160-odd individuals, most of them surviving in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan state.

Even in this last stronghold, survival is hard. Agricultural fields and a growing network of power lines and wind turbines have taken over their habitats, while predators like dogs destroy the eggs that the ostrich-like birds painstakingly lay down. In a last ditch effort, wildlife researchers along with the forest department have started a hunt for the birds’ eggs in Rajasthan to begin the process of captive breeding. On June 20, they managed to collect two bustard eggs from the wild.

“A beginning has been made and I hope we are able to save the bird,” Arindam Tomar, the state’s chief wildlife warden, told Mongabay.

The Wildlife Institute of India, Rajasthan forest department and India’s environment ministry have entered into an agreement to build two captive breeding facilities for the great Indian bustards (Ardeotis nigriceps). The main, bigger facility is being constructed in the village of Sorsan in southeast Rajasthan, while a second, smaller facility is being built in Jaisalmer, in the west, close to where many of the wild birds breed.

The buildings will take a year or two to come up, Tomar said, but the hunt for eggs is on because the teams “did not want to miss this year’s breeding season.”

“That was the urgency of doing it,” he said. “There are only 150 great Indian bustards surviving in the wild, so every day is precious. We don’t have any captive population of great Indian bustards at all, we don’t have them in any zoos or anywhere else.”

Mongabay contacted two experts from the Wildlife Institute of India involved in the project; one declined to comment and the other did not respond.

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Hen harrier chicks to be reared in captivity to placate grouse moor owners

‘Brood management’ trial criticised for failing to tackle persecution of bird of prey

Patrick Barkham

Thu 6 Jun 2019 11.30 BSTLast modified on Thu 6 Jun 2019 13.46 BST

Hen harrier chicks will be removed from their parents and reared in captivity this summer in a controversial “brood management” scheme to placate grouse moor owners.

Removing young hen harriers from nests on grouse moors is designed to prevent concentrations of the bird of prey on grouse shooting estates. Stopping hen harriers from feeding on young grouse is designed to reduce the illegal killing of the species, which is on the brink of extinction as a breeding bird in England.

Last summer was the bird’s most successful breeding season for more than a decade with 34 chicks fledged from nine nests across northern England.

Natural England, the government’s conservation watchdog, announced its brood management scheme would begin this summer with “active” hen harrier nests meeting the criteria for chick removal and landowners willing to be part of the trial.

The chicks would be raised in captivity and then released into suitable habitat away from grouse moors. The hen harrier tends to nest in clusters and proponents of the scheme argued that brood management provided reassurance to grouse moor owners that concentrations of hen harriers would not build up on their moors, predating grouse populations. This, it has been argued, would stop gamekeepers and others illegally killing the bird.

Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, said: “Conservation and protection of the hen harrier is at the heart of what we are doing in licensing this trial of brood management. This decision takes forward but one element in a far broader recovery strategy for the species.

“Natural England is ready to take the next careful step, aware that the licensed activity and the research will rightly come under close scrutiny from the scientists on the advisory group, from ourselves as the licensing authority and by those both supportive of and opposed to this trial.

“We, as an organisation, must pursue all options for an important bird such as the hen harrier, so that our children may enjoy this majestic species in the wild.”

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Highly endangered Florida grasshopper sparrows reared in captivity are released

MAY 13, 2019

by Kevin Spear, Orlando Sentinel

Three of the rarest birds in Florida took an extraordinary adventure this week, slipping out of a large pen into the freedom of an expansive, treeless prairie south of Orlando.

The year-old Florida grasshopper sparrows were hatched and raised in captivity, and designated as pioneers in a perilous bid to save their kind from oblivion.

Staffers of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other organizations lined a dirt road Monday, observing the pen in the far distance as a pair of biologists removed panels from the enclosure.

Then, with a light breeze, clouds of love bugs and an air of worry and optimism, the group waited quietly for an hour for the secretive birds to make their move.

"One flew out," came a text message, followed a short while later by a text suggesting the other two had fled, as they are programmed to do, by running unseen through shrubs and grass.

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Australian zoo breeds rare plains-wanderer by replacing absent father with feather duster

Captive population of critically endangered bird doubles with the birth of nine chicks

Calla Wahlquist

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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Whooping Cranes Are Back From The Brink

Mar 18, 2019, 03:58pm

The whooping crane conservation effort has ended after successfully pulling the iconic bird back from the brink of extinction

Considering all the recent bad news regarding the global devastation of non-human species, I thought it was time to share some good news with you: The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recently ended its successful research and captive breeding effort of the endangered whooping crane. This research and conservation effort had been ongoing for more than 50 years.

“Whooping cranes are still endangered, but the overall population has grown more than tenfold in the last 50 years since Patuxent’s program began,” said conservation biologist John French, director of the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

The whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America, and one of the largest. Their lifespan is just 22 to 24 years in the wild. Whooping cranes are omnivorous (with a preference for carnivory), and they foraging whilst strolling about in shallow water or through fields.

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Endangered birds threatening to derail the $2billion Adani coal mine are being bred in homes and sold online for $30

The endangered bird at centre of mine debate is being bred in private homes 

Breeder said it could be the solution to protecting the endangered species 

Adani hit out at draft review of their plans to protect the black-throated finch  

By ADAM MCCLEERY and BEN HILL FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 01:36, 21 February 2019 | UPDATED: 01:38, 21 February 2019

The endangered bird threatening to halt construction of the Adani coal mine is being bred in homes and sold for as little as $30.

Breeders believe it could be a solution to protecting the endangered black-throated finch from extinction after it lost most of its natural habitat through farm land expansion.

Gordon Doutre, 57, who has been a finch breeder for half a century, told The Australian he truly believes breeders can save the bird from extinction. 

'I think the black-throated finch problem could be easily fixed because there are quite a few breeders out there who breed it and would take the opportunity to put them back into the wild,' he said. 

'If we harness aviculture societies to breed up these birds and then donate them to acclimatisation aviaries, then we could release them back into the wild. It's a sure winner.' 

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Captive breeding programmes will help save our wild birds

Projects to breed falcons in captivity were first launched by Sheikh Zayed more than 40 years ago

In the past, the conservation community and devotees of falconry viewed one another with a degree of suspicion at best and at worst, open hostility. But there have been important steps made recently in a growing collaboration between the two groups. Earlier this year, I attended a conference in Abu Dhabi called Summit for the Flyways, which brought together both conservation organisations such as BirdLife International and the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and bodies related to falconry, including the Abu Dhabi-based International Fund for Houbara Conservation. The meeting, supported by the UN-affiliated Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species and the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi, examined threats to migratory birds moving between Africa, Europe and Asia and discussed initiatives to reduce those threats.

The conflict between the two camps has been fading as both have recognised that there is scope to work together and that the two passions are not mutually exclusive. After all, there can be no long-term future for falconry if the survival of wild falcons and their favoured prey, the houbara, is in danger. At the same time, the conservation of the habitats in which these species live has a beneficial effect on all other creatures that live there. There are both shared interests and potential conflicts of interest and the identification of a happy medium is, surely, the way forward.

As a boy growing in the English countryside, I developed a profound interest in the environment and the wildlife around me. With a father who was a top horticultural writer and a mother who taught biology, that was, perhaps, not surprising. For years, I used to shoot as well, deriving satisfaction not so much from the quarry as from the gradually honed ability to observe wildlife around me. I no longer shoot but I’ve never found it difficult to combine passion for the environment with support for some forms of country sports, field sports or blood sports, whatever you might call them.

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Captive-reared Critically Endangered vultures soon to be released in Nepal

8 Nov 2017

Conservationists are making great progress in removing vulture-killing drug diclofenac from Nepal, with vulture populations stabilising as a result. Now, in this safer environment, it’s almost time for six captive-reared White-rumped Vultures to venture out into the wild.

South Asian vultures have famously suffered devastating population declines in recent decades. For example, 99.9% of White-rumped Vultures Gyps bengalensis were wiped out between 1992 and 2007. This was due to the use of diclofenac: an anti-inflammatory drug given to reduce pain in livestock, but deadly to vultures that subsequently feed on their carcasses. A ban on veterinary diclofenac in India, Nepal and Pakistan in 2006 and Bangladesh in 2010 has allowed vulture populations to stabilise and possibly start to recover in some areas.

However, five of South Asia’s nine vulture species remain Endangered or Critically Endangered; the misuse of human diclofenac to treat livestock, as well as the use of other vulture-toxic veterinary drugs, continues to threaten some South Asian vulture populations with extinction. BirdLife Partners are changing that, through a combination of advocacy, legislation and education.

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Egg switch latest ploy to save rare orange bellied parrot

The Australian

12:00AM October 28, 2017

MATTHEW DENHOLM

Tasmania correspondent

Hobart

Watching a gaggle of excited captive-bred birds take their first ­tentative steps to freedom, followed by a euphoric maiden flight in open skies, is a rare moment of joy for Shannon Troy.

The Tasmanian wildlife biologist is on the frontline of the ­increasingly desperate fight to bring Australia’s rarest bird — the­ ­orange-bellied parrot — back from the brink of extinction.

The stakes could not be higher for OBPs, as they are affectionately known, and releases such as these produce a tangle of emotions.

None of the seven captive-bred OBPs released this week have previously seen the outside an aviary; much less their windswept ancestral breeding grounds at the ­release site in Melaleuca, in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.

“That’s why I’m grinning like an idiot,” Ms Troy explained. “It’s hopeful and terrifying at the same time. Lots of them do well and breed; some of them you don’t see much of again.”

Annual releases of captive-bred OBPs aim to breed more wild birds to make the species’ annual winter migration from Melaleuca to coastal Victoria and South Australia. This week’s release was the second of three planned this spring — 23 birds in total.

The breeding program, which has cost millions of dollars over the years, has kept the species ticking over, albeit just. But there is a growing realisation it is not enough.

Before the annual migration from Melaleuca last autumn, there were about 35 left in the wild. So far, only 12 have returned from the mainland to breed again at Melaleuca, and most worryingly, only one female.

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Korat zoo breeding vultures to save them from extinction

NAKHON RATCHASIMA - Zoo keepers have begun a programme to breed vultures and return them to their natural habitat, with the species on the verge of extinction in Thailand.

Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo official Prasert Chanklang said on Wednesday that vultures have disappeared from the wild in Thailand due to changing geographic conditions becoming unfavourable for them. Use of pesticides and chemicals on farmland also drove them away.

Now, the species is to be seen only in zoos. Nakhon Ratchasima zoo has 7 vultures - 3 males and 4 females, he said. 

The zoo is trying to breed the large birds, with three pairs. One pair was seen building a nest, good news meaning that the birds were preparing to mate. Zoo staff were closely monitoring their behaviour. If the pair do mate and lay eggs it would be the first time the rare birds have been successfully bred in Thailand. 

If the breeding programme is successful, the vultures will eventually be released into their natural habitat, Mr Prasert said.

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UAE releases 2,000 endangered birds into the wild

By Staff Writer

Thursday, 8 May 2014 9:40 AM

The UAE has released 2,000 captive-bred houbara bustards into the wild as part of its conservation programme in Kazakhstan, just weeks after it was reported a Saudi prince reportedly killed almost the same number of the highly endangered birds during a hunting trip in Pakistan.

The UAE’s International Fund for Houbara Conservation (IFHC) transported the 2,000 birds by plane to Shymkent in Kazakhstan, close to the Sheikh Khalifa Houbara Breeding Centre, the WAM news agency said.

As part of the largest ever single release of the species in the wild, 93 of the birds were fitted with GPS satellite tracking devices, which will provide vital data about migration and survival of the endangered birds.

The IFHC, based in Abu Dhabi, breeds about 40,000 Asian and North African houbara bustards each year under a breeding program at Al Ain Zoo.

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Florida Biologists Initiate Captive Breeding for Endangered Grasshopper Sparrow Species

Apr 19, 2013 04:41 PM EDT | Michael Briggs

Biologists are initiating a captive breeding program for the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, an endangered species that is not found anywhere else in the world. 

According the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the species could go extinct in three to five years if officials do not step in to save it. The group announced the captive breeding program Thursday and while it is not the preferred solution, the 20 eggs collected will hopefully give the birds a chance. 

"Captive breeding is labor intensive and challenging. It is generally done as a last resort and there are no guarantees. But we have to try," Larry Williams, the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Vero Beach. "This is an emergency and the situation for this species is dire. This is literally a race against time." 

According to The San Francisco Chronicle, there are only 200 Florida Grasshopper Sparrows left in the wild. The Dusky Seaside Sparrow, the Grasshopper Sparrow's cousin, went extinct 1987 under similar circumstances. 

The eggs should hatch within 11 to 13 days, and the end goal is to release the birds into the wild in two to three years, according to biologists. 

"We know it's going to be hard," Williams said. "They're small birds living in dense vegetation and they're secretive by nature." 

The program will cost $68,000 and be covered by grants. Florida Grasshopper Sparrows are about 5 inches long and have flat heads with short tails and black and gray feathers. The birds were added to the federal endangered species list in 1986. 

A cocktail of problems have added to the decline of the sparrows. Williams believes a gender imbalance is a possible reason for the bird's decline, along with fire ants, which eat their eggs. Disease and a hit to the species' genetic diversity could also be to blame. 

"We're trying to prevent a unique part of Florida's landscape from vanishing," Williams said. 

(Source: Tampa Bay Times) 

http://www.designntrend.com/articles/3902/20130419/florida-biologists-captive-breeding-endangered-grasshopper-sparrow-species.htm