Feb 07, 2013 (Menafn - The
Blade - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --One of the Toledo
Zoo's newest residents is a female North Island brown kiwi chick.
The chick hatched Jan. 12 in
the zoo's Avian Breeding Center (ABC), an off-exhibit facility dedicated to
breeding rare and endangered birds.
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| Photo: Wikipedia |
Eight zoos in the U.S. and 17
zoos worldwide exhibit the animals, according to Toledo Zoo officials, and few
zoos outside New Zealand have successfully hatched kiwi. Through an
international species survival plan, zoos worldwide are working together to
preserve this species, which is endangered with decreasing populations in the
wild.
The Columbus Zoo provided the
Toledo Zoo with a fertilized egg in December, 2012, and aviary staff from both
zoos worked together throughout the 73-day incubation. Kiwi chicks have the
longest incubation period of any bird species, followed by an unusually long
hatching process which often lasts several days (the zoo's kiwi chick took five
days to complete hatching).
Public exhibit details have not
been finalized but the chick is expected to be a part of the Wild Walkabout
exhibit, scheduled to open May 24 which will feature the animals of Australia
and surrounding regions.
Kiwi are nocturnal, flightless
birds native to New Zealand. In the wild, kiwi were once widespread in New
Zealand, but today populations are isolated and fragmented. According to
information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources (IUCN), wild kiwi populations are estimated between 25,000 and 30,000
birds, with declines of 90 percent or more over the last century.
Some kiwi characteristics seem
more mammal-like than bird-like. They have a keen sense of smell (rare among
birds), good hearing and whiskery feathers around their face. They are also the
only bird with nostrils at the end of their beak, and females lay the largest
egg of any bird in the world, in relation to their size.
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