Rare birds from a critically endangered species hatch at Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo
A pair of extremely rare birds have made their debut at Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo and Garden.
The zoo announced Thursday morning that two blue-billed curassows recently hatched at the zoo. Typically found only in a few tropical forests in Colombia, South America, blue-billed curassows are on the critically endangered species list, with between 150 and 700 of the birds thought to be in existence.
In a Thursday news release, Riverbanks called the hatchings — the first-ever blue-billed curassow hatchings at the Columbia zoo — a “major win both for genetic diversity for (curassows) in human care and awareness of this species at risk.”
The parents of the two hatchlings are first-time parents, the zoo said in a release, and had failed to incubate their eggs.
“That’s when the keepers stepped in to care for the eggs in (Riverbanks’) Bird Conservation Center,” Riverbanks curator of birds Colleen Lynch said in a statement. “We hope to reunite our growing curassow clan as soon as possible.”
Riverbanks has long been known for its bird conservation. In March, Lynch accepted the 2022 Plume Award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in recognition of the zoo’s long-running flamingo program.
According to information from the Smithsonian National Zoo, blue-billed curassows were historically located throughout northern Colombia. But today the entire wild population is found, according to the Smithsonian website, “in just a few small remnant areas of tropical lowland forest.” Adult curassows can grow up to 36 inches in height.
