News and Stories

3 of 9 sihek chicks sent to a Pacific Ocean preserve are from Cincinnati 

CINCINNATI (August 30, 2024) – Nine sihek (aka Guam kingfisher) chicks, including three from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, arrived in their new home on an island in the Pacific Ocean on August 28, after a 4,600-mile journey from their quarantine location in Wichita, Kansas.  They will spend the next few weeks getting acclimated to their new forest home in aviaries within The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Palmyra Atoll preserve and research station before becoming the first sihek to be released in the wild since the 1980s. 

Photos | Video/Sound from Cincinnati Zoo Bird Team | Photos and Videos from Translocation 

The Sihek Recovery Program – a project bringing together world-leading conservation experts from across the globe – has been working to re-establish this extinct-in the wild species for years, and this is the first year that facilities housing the rare sapphire and cinnamon feathered birds have produced enough healthy chicks to be released. 

Sihek, as the birds are known by the indigenous CHamoru* people, once flourished on the North Pacific Island of Guam. However, the accidental introduction of the brown tree snake to the island in the 1940s decimated sihek and other native bird populations. First listed under the Guam Endangered Species Act in 1982, the sihek was subsequently added to the US Endangered Species List in 1984 and was officially recognized as being extinct in the wild following the last wild sighting in 1988.  

Meet the Chicks

Through an emergency rescue operation of 28 sihek in the 1980s – carried out by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and Guam Department of Agriculture (DOAG) – a small number of sihek were rescued into human care. Cincinnati Zoo received its first adult in 1982 and has produced more than 30 chicks since then! Because of that breeding success, Cincinnati’s bird team was invited to be a part of the historical translocation effort that started last year. This year, its two breeding pairs produced more than 10 eggs.  Three of the chicks that hatched from those eggs are among the nine that will be the first to be released to the wild after 36 years.  

The 4 female and 5 male chicks will be monitored and cared for within the aviaries until they’re fully ready for release.  Updates on their progress before and after release will be shared here – Sihek Recovery Project (Instagram). 

Palmyra Atoll was chosen as the release location because it is predator-free and fully protected.  It is a US Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge and is further protected—out to 50 nautical miles—by the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the largest swath of ocean and islands protected under a single jurisdiction in the world.  The Nature Conservancy maintains a preserve and research station within the refuge.   The atoll will provide the sihek a safe, wild home to thrive in and establish a breeding population, with the goal to return the species to Guam once the threat from snakes is controlled.  Releases will be repeated annually until 20 sihek have successfully established themselves as breeding pairs. 

All birds were hatched and hand-reared for this release, having been bred as part of a 24-zoo collaborative breeding program operating across the US. The sihek chicks were raised in a purpose built biosecurity facility at Sedgwick County Zoo, receiving expert care from specialist bird keepers from seven participating AZA zoos, including Cincinnati, as well as from ZSL’s London and Whipsnade Zoo in the UK – all of whom worked around the clock to feed, weigh and monitor the chicks as they grew from hatchlings weighing no more than a pencil to fully-grown birds ready for their next big step.    

“This project has been so impactful to our department.  It was a real team effort, internally and with participating organizations, and we’re just so proud to have been a part of it,” said Aimee Owen, senior aviculture keeper at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and one of the bird team members who cared for eggs in Cincinnati.  “The Cincinnati Zoo has been participating in efforts to ensure the survival of this iconic kingfisher species longer than I’ve been alive, and we’re beyond thrilled to be on the cusp of making conservation history.” 

The birds were accompanied on their 14-hour journey by a wildlife vet from Sedgwick County Zoo, where all candidates for release were cared for in a bio and a bird husbandry specialist from Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute – both of whom will be caring for the birds during these final stages – along with representatives from the Guam government.    

Dr. Caitlin Andrews, one of the conservation scientists behind the move and joint researcher at TNC and ZSL’s Institute of Zoology said: “The arrival of the birds to the Palmyra Atoll is an incredible day that the whole partnership has been working toward for years. We’re all feeling so excited and proud.  Returning species to the wild is a long, complex process that requires careful planning and creative solutions. We wouldn’t be here without conservation zoos and the essential role they play in saving species on the brink of extinction, or the decades of restoration work by TNC and its partners allowing Palmyra Atoll to serve as a safe haven for sihek and other wildlife.    

“We still have some years to go until sihek establish a self-sustaining population, but this is an amazing milestone, and other success stories show us that it is possible. We are hopeful that the Palmyra population will flourish and serve as a stepping stone for sihek on their journey home to Guam someday.”