Zookeepers in Prague turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures

Yahoo

4 days ago

Zookeepers in Prague have become puppeteers to save newborn birds rejected by their parents.
The latest was a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick which hatched three weeks ago.
Bird keeper Antonin Vaidl said that when a dummy egg disappeared from the nest, it signalled to keepers that the parents were not ready to care for their two babies, despite doing so in 2022 and 2023.
The first-born is being kept in a box and fed using a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird, while another is expected to hatch in the next few days.
Mr Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding, which it will not if it gets used to human interaction.
He explained that the puppet does not have to be a perfect replica of an adult bird because the chick responds to certain signals, such as the pale orange coloration on its featherless head and neck.
Lesser yellow-headed vultures live in the wild in Latin America and Mexico. Prague Zoo is one of only three zoos in Europe that breed them.
In the past, the park successfully applied this treatment to save the critically endangered Javan green magpie and two rhinoceros hornbill chicks. The puppet-feeding technique is applicable for birds that live in pairs.
'The method has been working well,' Mr Vaidl said. 'We'll see what happens with the vultures.'