Prague Zoo Saves Endangered Vulture Chick Using Puppet Care

At Prague Zoo, zookeepers are using puppetry to care for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick after its parents rejected it, signaling a lack of readiness when a dummy egg disappeared from the nest. The three-week-old chick is fed with a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird to prevent imprinting on humans, which is crucial for its future breeding capability. The puppet need not be a perfect replica but must display key signals like the pale orange coloration on the chick's featherless head and neck to elicit feeding responses. Prague Zoo, one of only three European zoos breeding this species, has successfully used this puppet-feeding technique before with critically endangered birds like the Javan green magpie and rhinoceros hornbill. This method, effective for birds that live in pairs, has shown promising results, offering hope for the survival of these rare vultures. Zookeeper Antonín Vaidl highlighted that the approach has been working well, and the zoo awaits the hatching of the second chick.