Keepers at the Calgary Zoo are one step closer to saving an endangered bird from extinction and are showing off eleven greater sage-grouse chicks that recently hatched at the facility.
Thirteen eggs were collected from around southern Alberta in May; one on May 9 and twelve on May 15.
Eleven of the chicks survived and are now being cared for at the Calgary Zoo’s Animal Health Centre.
“We are extremely pleased to have developed a process with the Alberta Government of safely finding, moving, and hatching sage grouse eggs that have been collected in the wild,” said Dr. Axel Moehrenschlager, Head of Conservation & Research at the Calgary Zoo. “We are demonstrating immediate action to respond to the species’ imminent risk of extinction in Canada. This is the first step towards founding a captive population that can serve to recover the species in the future.”
The chicks will soon be transferred to the zoo’s Devonian Wildlife Conservation Centre so they can be studied further.
Zoo officials say greater sage-grouse populations have been declining by 98 per cent over the past 25 to 45 years with fewer than 138 birds remaining in Canada.
The captive breeding program at the Calgary Zoo was one of five recommendations that came out of a symposium in January that discussed how to prevent the species’ extinction from Canada.
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