Bringing Up Birdy

It takes a village to raise a child, the expression goes, and the same may be true for chicks. For the Bronx Zoo’s great blue turacos, it took a training program, a ficus tree, and a dedicated team of staff from the Bird Department. Today, the bird pair is bringing up two healthy chicks, now on view in the World of Birds.

The great blue turaco, Corythaeola cristata, is the largest of all 23 species of turaco—a relative of the cuckoo. These blue-green birds with dark crests and red-tipped beaks live only in rainforests and gallery forests of central and western Africa. About half their geographic range lies within the Democratic Republic of Congo. Though there has been no official assessment of the birds’ status, like all turacos, they are threatened by habitat destruction.

The Bronx Zoo’s proud father turaco hails from the San Diego Zoo, and the mother from Hare Hatch, the Pheasant Foundation, in the U.K. Although the female had produced eggs in the past, parenting didn’t come easy to this bird pair. They had never exhibited natural breeding behaviors—such as building shallow stick nests or taking turns incubating their eggs—and the male acted defensively around his keepers.

Then the lessons began. Melissa Nelson, a curatorial intern focusing on animal behavior, helped the Bird Department plan and execute a training regime for the birds. As training progressed, the male became less aggressive—and more paternal. The keepers began to observe more natural behaviors, watching the birds incubate their eggs for longer and longer periods of time. Soon, caring for their eggs became a full-term occupation for the turacos. The result: fertile eggs! Based on suggestions provided by the San Diego Zoo, which has bred the greatest number of these birds, the Bronx Zoo bird staff modified the nest box and the turacos’ diets. A large ficus tree inside the World of Birds provides the adults with fresh leaves to eat, and keepers supplement the greens with figs—a favorite fruit.

Currently, only 45 great blue turacos exist in captivity, many of them in American zoos. With the hatching of the chicks, the Bronx Zoo becomes the fifth institution in the world to successfully breed these birds, and the first whose birds have successfully raised two chicks to fledging. The low rates of success are due in large part to the species’ folivorous (leaf and flower) diet, which is difficult to reproduce in zoos.

Turacos typically lay two eggs and incubate them for about 30 days. Chicks leave the nest after another month, but do not resemble adults in appearance until up to 90 days. For now, the zoo’s chicks are a gray-brown color, though their beautiful blue feathers are beginning to grow in. Come visit the happy family on your next trip to the World of Birds!

Updated: 6/18/2009