The Lowry park zoo, has announced the first hatching in North America of a shoebill stork. The Zoo manages two pair of shoebills in two aviaries within the Ituri Forest exhibit area. In 2009, the Zoo turned its North Lake into a giant free-flight aviary featuring dozens of greater African flamingos, great white pelicans, shoebill storks, yellow-billed storks, white-breasted cormorants and a group of ring-tailed lemurs on an island. The parent birds established a nest site earlier in the year, and the female laid an egg, a first in North America, on October 3. This egg was accidentally crushed by the new parents; however the female laid a second egg on November 11 which successfully incubated. To date, the parent birds are extremely attentive and sharing in the brooding responsibilities. Feeding has been established, which was another major milestone. Aviary zoo keepers have conducted “dawn to dusk” watches to document feeding by the parent birds and response by the chick. Based on limited available data, it is anticipated that the chick will remain in the next for approximately 120 days. African Shoebill Stork Delivers a Baby to Tampas Lowry Park Zoo Zoo and Aquarium Visitor News
Wow ! Congratulations to Tampa ! I cross the fingers, the chick will raised succesfully. Its amazing, the zoo let the parents raise the precious chick.
So did paradisio with their 2nd nest. there it went great too, until unfortunately both chick and father got an infection and died. I know Tampa and paradisio had contact regarding the breeding, so tampa probably wasn't unprepared for a maternal incubation and parent rearing.
Perhaps we in the zoo environment we are finally fine-tuning the breeding, incubation, hatching + rearing of shoebill storks?!
Fantastic. Any news on how the new pair in Paradisio is getting on? Can we hope for more chicks in Europe too? What about the birds in Prague?
the new pair in paradisio is getting along. now it's fingers crossed for any (successful) matings. regarding the rest of the european population. I heard rumours of mixing several animals in order to create new pairs. if and when this will happen: no idea.
Zoo Praha is building a new shoebill aviary for a breeding pair this year. Fingers crossed this will stimulate another potential pair into breeding (I have could hope ... it just might).
Great news indeed! I can remember seeing Shoebills at Lowry when I was a little girl and was always impressed by them.
Any news regarding new breeding attempts? Which zoos in the US keep Shoebills and who of them keeps the birds in aviaries?
The four zoos in the US that keep shoebills are as follows: Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo* Dallas World Aquarium San Diego Zoo Safari Park* Houston Zoo * means that eggs have been laid at the facility. I don't have a current population count but I saw two at Houston (I know there is a third), two at Tampa (presumably there are four), two at SDZSP (there are at least[/] two in an off exhibit aviary. More on that later) and two at the DWA. The Houston Zoo has a large aviary split into two for managing its shoebills. I believe there are three- they received the chick that was hatched in Tampa, but I only saw two. The Lowry Park Zoo has (as explained above) a large lake aviary and a smaller aviary that is thickly planted. I saw one in each. In the smaller aviary they are mixed with bald ibis (I forgot if northern or southern, but I think southern) and some other small birds. The San Diego Zoo Safari Park has a pair on exhibit and an unknown amount off exhibit. The on exhibit pair is flight restricted and lives in the Lagoon, but I'm not sure how they are restricted. The off exhibit birds are at least 1.1, not sure if there are more. They imported six a while back so there could be another one or two back there. The 1.1 live in an aviary and the female successfully laid eggs last year. Sadly, the pair kicked them out of the nest because they didn't hatch (infertile). There are hopes for breeding them this year but there's been no news. The on exhibit pair are mixed with a plethora of waterfowl, both wild and captive. The Dallas World Aquarium keeps (or kept) 1.1 in the smallest exhibit for the species in the US. They are in an aviary, but there wouldn't be much room for them to fly. The last two visits I made to the facility, I only saw one, so it is possible that the other has passed away (it'd be hard to miss). They/it are/is mixed with African green pigeon, Fischer's turaco, great blue turaco, and some species of duck. The DWA actually imported 8 shoebills from Tanzania, but only two (or one) survive today because of unfortunate mishaps. Three died in quarantine, two in a water quality accident, and one died I believe in a storm (the off exhibit animals were kept on a roof). To answer your question effectively, the only facility that I can confirm is trying to breed the species in America is the SDZSP. However, it's likely every facility is having a crack at them. Hope I helped!
