The sihek is one step, or wingbeat, closer to returning to its home in the wild thanks to a collaborative breeding programme.
With bright orange and blue plumage, the sihek (Todiramphus cinnamominus), also known as the Guam kingfisher, was once found only on the North Pacific island of Guam. But their population was wiped out by the accidental introduction of invasive, predatory brown tree snakes, which first arrived in Guam in the 1940s on shipping containers.
The impact on Guam’s wildlife was devastating, with most native bird, bat and lizard species lost from the wild, and Guam’s ecosystem thrown out of balance – less trees grew, due to the fact there were so few birds left to disperse seeds.
The sihek was officially classified as Extinct-in-the-Wild by the IUCN in 1988.
In 1983, an emergency operation was initiated by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, in which 29 sihek were brought into captivity by 1988. The Sihek Recovery Program, a global collaboration of conservationist organisations, including Zoological Society of London (ZSL), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), Guam DAWR, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Sedgwick County Zoo, AZA and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is now starting the work to return them to the wild.
Nine hand-raised sihek that were hatched from eggs at zoos across the US (Cincinnati Zoo, Sedgwick County Zoo, National Aviary, Disney Animal Kingdom and Brookfield Zoo Chicago) and raised by keepers, including experts from ZSL’s London and Whipsnade Zoos, at a specialist facility at Sedgwick County Zoo, Kansas have just completed their journey of over 7,000km by plane from Wichita, Kansas to Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
Palmyra will provide a temporary home for the birds, with the ultimate goal of one day returning them to Guam once the threat from the island’s snakes has been controlled.
“Successful recovery of a species we’ve inadvertently pushed to the very edge of extinction is a powerful example of hope and our ability to reverse the wrongs we’ve wrought on Planet Earth,” says Professor John Ewen, from ZSL’s Institute of Zoology and Sihek Recovery Program Team Chair.
"Species like sihek are of the most extreme type - they’ve been completely lost from nature and now reside only under human care in zoos. They’re extinct in the wild. The sihek is important in itself but also as a beacon for humanity to celebrate that we can correct our mistakes and recover a more rich, resilient and biologically diverse world.”
The kingfishers have a vital role to play within island ecosystems. “Sihek are predators and cavity excavators in their natural ecosystem,” explains Ewen.
“Oceanic island species, like sihek, can be top predators in these systems and play important regulatory roles on prey species and diversity, as well as engineering habitat for species through their cavity excavations.”
It’s believed that more than two million brown tree snakes still live on Guam, which presents a serious obstacle to the sihek returning home soon.
“The brown tree snake is an especially challenging threat,” says Ewen. “There continues to be intense focus on developing methods for snake control on Guam. As soon as the snakes are controlled, we can begin our work restoring the native biodiversity.”
Now the sihek have arrived on Palmyra, the birds will spend several weeks in aviaries within their new forest home, allowing them to acclimatise, while the team monitor them to ensure they’re ready for release later this year. That next step will make the birds the first wild sihek population for almost four decades.
“Sihek have not been in the wild since 1988 and we need to ensure these birds can transition from a life under human care in zoos to free-living in the wild,” says Ewen.
“We see three main areas that might initially challenge the birds: finding food, flying through their new home, and dealing with the varied, often extremely wet, weather. We won’t release the birds until we see they’re hunting and eating local prey they find in their release aviaries, that they’ve built up their flight agility and roosting behaviour, and they’ve successfully dealt with extreme rain and temperature events.”
Is it possible the birds will simply fly away and go somewhere else, other than Palmyra? “It’s highly unlikely,” says Ewen. “Palmyra Atoll is extremely isolated and sihek are not known to cross anything more than the smallest of water bodies. Each bird will also be fitted with a small radio transmitter, so we can closely follow their movements over the first months post-release. We’ll continue to watch them closely over the coming years.”
The translocation of captive-bred sihek to new lives in the wild is seen as an important milestone in the ongoing mission to establish a self-sustaining population on the Atoll and, eventually, back on Guam.
“Welcoming the sihek home to Guam would be a dream come true,” says Melanie Blas, the project’s Guam community representative. “Our sihek has become a symbol of hope and cultural revival for our island and our people. As a species endemic to Guam, our sihek is special to us. Although it’s been over 30 years since we’ve seen them living in our forests, we look forward to that special day when we will hear them chirping in the trees and see them gliding through the sky with their beautiful colours.”
The birds are an important part of Guam’s cultural heritage. “There was a story told a long time ago about a loud woman that was turned into a sihek by the ancestors, and this was why the sihek has a very loud voice and their sounds can be heard through the forest,” says Blas.
“Sihek are a part of us, and we remember them and celebrate them by painting them on walls, honouring them as school mascots, and writing poems and stories for them. When that day comes when they brighten our skies with their sapphire and cinnamon feathers and liven up our forests with their voices, we will be ready to greet them with our hearts wide open, as our sihek family will have returned back home to Guam, where they belong.”
Main image credit: ZSL/ Thomas Mangloña II KUAM
More wildlife stories from around the world
- Golden bats found hiding deep inside in Mexico's ancient temples
- These dinosaur footprints disappear on one side of the Atlantic Ocean and reappear on the other
- New Zealand’s endangered flightless birds are retreating to 'moa graveyards'
- "We found 20 pairs of wings in an hour.” Culprit of Jamaica's dismembered bats caught on camera