Zoo in New York resorting to hand puppet as feeding aid for young vulture
Hands-On Avian Care 🎉
NYC Zoo Employs Clever Method to Raise a King Vulture Chick 🦃
It's not every day you witness a hand puppet taking center stage at a zoo! At the Bronx Zoo, things are a bit unconventional - staff are raising a baby king vulture using a hand puppet, a technique that's been around for decades. Why the unusual approach? Well, it's all about ensuring the chick doesn't get too attached to humans 💭
You see, king vultures can be a tad neglectful when it comes to their young ones. To guarantee the chick's survival, the zoo's animal care team is stepping in, but they've got a clever trick to keep human interaction to a minimum. They're using a hand puppet that resembles a real vulture to feed the chick, reducing the risk of imprinting 🦽
"We're feeding the chick with our very own Bronx Zoo-made puppet once a day. Our goal is to make sure it doesn't imprint on humans," shared Chuck Cerbini, Bronx Zoo's Curator of Ornithology. 💬
In case you're wondering, the hand puppet is crafted by the zoo's artistic team to look just like a grown vulture. During feeding sessions, staff don black costumes and cover their faces to conceal human features, creating an immersive vulture-like experience for the chick. 🎭
An adult king vulture is housed nearby, offering the chick the opportunity to observe species-specific behaviors and further reinforce natural instincts. 👋
Fun fact: The Bronx Zoo's puppet method was initially developed way back when to raise three Andean condor chicks, which were reintroduced to the wild in Peru. It's also been used to help the critically endangered California condor. 🌎
The new king vulture chick is the first to be hatched at the Bronx Zoo since the '90s, and the team wants to carry on the genetics of the chick's 55-year-old father, who only has one other living offspring. 🔛
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- The new king vulture chick hatched at the Bronx Zoo, just like Seattle's home-and-garden pets, needs a specific lifestyle to thrive.
- To avoid imprinting on humans and ensure survival, the zookeepers in the Bronx are employing a unique behavior: feeding the chick with a hand puppet that resembles a grown vulture.
- Interestingly, the puppet method used by the Bronx Zoo's animal care team to raise the king vulture chick has been brought from the Bronx to the booming pet scene in Seattle.
- While exploring the pet section in a home-and-garden store in Seattle, one might come across a vulture puppet that remind them of the unusual care given to a baby king vulture in the Bronx.
