Ninth Endangered Milky Stork Hatches At San Diego Zoo Safari Park

SAN DIEGO, CA — Nine milky stork chicks have hatched at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park through an effort to save the critically endangered coastal bird species, zoo officials announced Thursday.

The zoo conducted the first medical checkup this week on the ninth chick, which hatched in June. During the checkup the team looked for irregularities, obtained weight, collected samples to determine sex and implanted a microchip.

Andrew Stehly, curator of birds at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, explained that the zoo uses microchips and banding to tell the birds apart because milky storks look the same when they are adults.

"This checkup went very fast," Stehly said. "The chick was deemed healthy and was reunited with its parents."

Through a breeding program, the Safari Park has worked to save the critically endangered species.

The program brought North America's last 23 surviving milky storks to a habitat at the Safari Park more than two years ago. The team has worked to aid birds previously living in wildlife facilities to produce new chicks.

"It is a tremendous honor every time I see a new chick, because it increases my confidence that we will save these birds," Stehly said.

The world's population of milky storks has fallen substantially since the late 1980s, according to the zoo. Scientists attribute the decline in the coastal bird's population to habitat destruction and deforestation from human activities such as fish farming, rice cultivation, human resettlement and increased wildlife trafficking.

In 2008, the species' global population dropped to less than 2,200 birds, alarming conservationists and leading them to change their status to endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.