CALGARY — The Calgary Zoo's latest efforts to save Canada's endangered sage-grouse population are falling on the strutting shoulders of Monty, a chick that first came to the zoo this spring as an egg.
Zoo officials say the chicks' sex is hard to determine at an early age, but not long after being born, Monty started doing a body-popping mating dance.
"We're hopeful this special bird and his dance moves will establish himself with our hens next breeding season as the 'most desirable bachelor,'" the Calgary Zoo said in a release Tuesday.
There are only about 100 to 200 adult greater sage-grouse left in the wild in Canada and less than two per cent of chicks that hatch in the wild actually survive to the beginning of the next breeding season.
The zoo has undertaken several efforts to help save the species since the program launched in 2014, including raising chicks in captivity and growing thousands of sagebrush plants.
This month, the zoo will release around 80 greater sage-grouse into native prairie in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The zoo boasts one of the birds released in 2018 sucessfully bred in the wild and they are now focused on studying how released birds can better survive and reproduce better in the wild.
