NEW YORK (AP) — A child vulture at a New York zoo is being fed not by one other hen however by hand puppet — a decades-old approach used to make sure the chick doesn’t establish too intently with its human handlers.
King vultures can neglect their chicks, so hand-feeding is critical to make sure the child survives, the Bronx Zoo stated in a press release Tuesday. However to ensure it doesn’t imprint on people, workers practice the hen’s instincts onto a hand puppet that’s crafted to appear to be an actual vulture.
“At this stage of improvement, our animal care workers are feeding the chick with the Bronx Zoo-made puppet as soon as a day and we’re working to make sure it doesn’t imprint on people,” Bronx Zoo Curator of Ornithology Chuck Cerbini stated in a press release.
Footage of a feeding session exhibits somebody with their arm clad in black and a puppet that appears like a vulture’s face and beak on their hand, which is used to seize morsels of meals and ship them to the chick’s mouth.
An grownup king vulture is positioned in an adjoining enclosure that “permits the chick to have publicity to acceptable king vulture conduct,” Cerbini stated.
The zoo says it helped develop the feeding approach greater than 4 many years in the past when staff there used it to boost three Andean condor chicks, which have been then launched into the wild in Peru. Hand-puppet rearing has additionally been used to assist carry again the critically endangered California condor.
The brand new king vulture chick, which is but to be named, is the primary of its type to be hatched on the Bronx Zoo because the Nineteen Nineties. The zoo stated it desires to ensure the genetics of the chick’s 55-year-old father are carried on, because it has just one different residing offspring.
