Prague Zoo staff have turned into puppeteers to save newborn chicks rejected by their parents.
One of them is a small yellow-headed vulture chick that hatched three weeks ago.
Bird keeper Antonin Weidl said the disappearance of the dummy egg from the nest was a signal to keepers that the parents were not ready to care for their two chicks, although they did so in 2022 and 2023.
The first chick is kept in a box and fed using a doll that imitates the parent bird, and another chick is expected to hatch in the next couple of days.
Mr Weidl noted that the doll was necessary to ensure that the bird could reproduce, which it would not be able to do if it became accustomed to human contact.
He explained that the doll does not necessarily have to be an exact replica of the adult bird, as the chick responds to certain cues, such as the pale orange colour 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 where they are bred.
The park has previously used this method successfully to save an endangered Javan green magpie and two hornbill chicks. The doll-feeding method can also be used for paired birds.
“The method shows good results,” Mr. Weidl said. “We'll see how things go with the vultures.”
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
