the worlds first!!! » Parc Paradisio

30-07-2008

Many Many Thanks for these great and phantastic pictures. Strange, there is nothing to read about the world first breeding of shoebills in germany, do anybody has read about that in newspapers or magazines ?

30-07-2008

Can only agree with Zebraduiker-thanks a lot for the pics.

@Pertinax: What do You mean with "did"? I had to wear such a crane "masquerade" at a crane breeding facility last summer. Feels like running around in a burqa.

30-07-2008

I'm glad I wasn't there to see it, I would have split my sides, I can't help it I just find it hilarious....

30-07-2008

Great photos of both chicks and the parent birds with their new egg. I wonder if this one will be left with them. Depends on their behaviour perhaps?

30-07-2008

possibly because I'm only active on Dutch, English and French speaking forums


no seriously. they sent out a press review, but I have no idea how international that was. allthough they were called by Japanese zoo (I think Ueno) to congratulate them on the result.

I have no idea how far it travelled through the net. fora and stuff. I only visit 3 or so.

30-07-2008

this one will be parent reared

30-07-2008

It's probably not necessary for chicks which will be staying in captivity. The three species mentioned (Californian condors, whooping cranes, takahe) are reared artificially for release into the wild. The puppets are used so that they have no familiarity with humans and therefore do not approach people once released, rather than just to prevent imprinting.

30-07-2008

You are right. I wasn't thinking straight. With Shoebills in captivity, in order to reduce stress levels its probably better if they are as used to people as possible, while not being so imprinted that they won't breed. But two chicks raised together should prevent that.

03-08-2008

missed this question so far but:
pinioned: wuppertal and walsrode
full winged: paradisio and frankfurt allthough the latter only has an indoor enclosure and can't really fly.
prague and zurich: I have no idea, they were not on display in prague when I was there. but I guess full winged, because I heard they're kept in an aviary and I never visited zurich

outside europe: not sure, but I believe san diegos and uenos are free flying. based on the fact I've seen pics of them in netted enclosures. the other zoos I really wouldn't know.

but there's other news, allthough I almost dare not say it ...
just got the word: the parents are brooding on 2! eggs now!!!

and a questions for the german members here. I'm only active on my own forum (zoosite.nl), this one and a french one. Is this news out on german fora, because from what zebraduiker says, it's still fairly unknown.

03-08-2008

This is absolutely fantastic news about the 2nd clutch of showbill eggs!!

About the 2 handraised chicks, I do not believe that raising 2 chicks together avoids imprinting. Fact is, animals learn who their parents and therefore their later reproductive partners are very early in life. The being who does the feeding and warming = mum. So these chicks learn now that their parents are humans. And they have no chance to learn shoe-bill storck behavoir since they are not with adult shoebills, and probably won`t be when they`ve grown up a bit. They can`t really learn that from the sibling who hasn`t learned that neither...

Maybe, hopefully being together with the sibling will be enough for the fledgelings to learn that they are birds and not humans. Many species have no problems to reproduce normally when they`re put together with animals of their own species after being handraised if this happens early enough before the animal is fully mature and the window for learning of social behavoir has closed.

The fact that shoebills have never bred before in captivity mainly because the birds were imprinted to humans and never showed any interest in each other does not make me very optimistic for the 2 hand-raised chicks though. If being together with other hand-raised chicks and young adults would be enough for this species to recognise their sexual partners and reproduce sucessfully, breeding would have happenend a lot early, hadn`t it?

03-08-2008

as all shoebills in captivity are wildcaught as adults or subadults, I don't really think your theory goes.

it's a fact that parent reared is always a better option than hand reared, but as I said before. they've had a lot of experience in hand rearing several other species like raptors, but cranes as well. and most of those chicks turned out fine and reproduced when kept with their own kind. (allthough I'm not sure about the cranes)

either way, it's quite certain that all future nests will be parent reared if they prove themselves with these new eggs.

03-08-2008

From what I have been told, all shoebills in captivity exept the birds in Prague and Paradiso have been wild-caught as chicks and handraised and are not interested in mating with other shoebills. The birds in Paradiso and Prague are not imprinted and know who their sexual partners are because they have been wildcaught as subadults. But with the handraised chicks, the same may happen like with the wildcaught chicks.

I really hope not!!

With just one breeding pair and not many more potential breeding birds, it might be a good idea to take the first clutch away from the pair each year to boost the number of chicks produced from a possible 2 to 4. But this makes only sense when the handraised chicks will breed...

You are correct that most other species of birds breed naturally even when handraised, but it seems shoebills are different or this wouldn`t be a world`s first.

03-08-2008

I don't know about all zoos, but those I know of really have brought them in as adult or subadult animals. and I haven't seen any writings anywhere about hand raising shoebills in the past.

all I know is that in the past the animals were often kept alone. but that was when zoos were'nt thinking of breeding yet and merely showed as many animals as possible. even now several zoos have only 1 shoebill in the collection.

during the more recent breeding attempts birds were often thrown in the mix together. that was the case in walsrode, which exchanged one of their animals not to long ago, because their pair didn't really like each other.

there are several bird species that are pretty picky when it comes to partners. so with the scenario I described above, it seems to me that this more than anything is responsible for the long wait we had for breeding results.

paradisio gave their birds the choise of partner. zoos like prague, san diego and lowry have several animals of both sexes. apparently they too think the animals should chose their mate themselves.

I only hope that if more pairs start to reproduce, the zoos will work well together in establishing an nice strong genetic pool.

03-08-2008

Perhaps when the two handraised chicks are safely reared they can be put within sight or contact of the parents (and hopefully their naturally -reared young) as a way of improving their 'stork' skills?

04-08-2008

The shoebils in prague are not living in best conditions behind the scenes , I've seen all five animals last year. They are being kept in the quarantine station and have access to outside aviarays, which are not very big. I think, the shoebills there can fly.

I don't know, what will happen to the shoebills, the first plan was to build an own house with a breeding section for them, so the people could see them, but this was never build and someone at the zoo told me, that the zoodirector has lost the interest in them.

That's sad, he has very precious animals and is not trying to breed with them. So the best for the shoebillss would be, to send them to other facillitys, Paradiso would make sense now.

There is a thread now about the world first breeding of shoebills in a german forum, and last friday, it was published in a web zoo magzine, called " Zoopresseschau", but it was not published in other magazines or newspapers, maybe Paradiso has not send out a press information.

There is only one shoebill left at the Frankfurt Zoo. Altough they have an outside exhibit, it is not used for the shoebills since many years,I don't know the reason for that, but because the last shoebill is all the time inside, he maybe can fly now.