Extinct-In-The-Wild Birds Released Into Wild For First Time In 40 Years

Global conservation partnership releases the first captive-bred population of Guam kingfishers into the wilds of Palmyra Atoll.

© by GrrlScientist for Forbes | LinkTr.ee

Sihek at Sedgewick County Zoo. (Credit: Thomas Manglona, image appears here with permission.)

Conservation biologists are celebrating a momentous occasion: they just released a small group of Extinct-In-The-Wild Guam kingfishers into the tropical rainforests of Palmyra Atoll, where they are now flying free.

Long story short: Guam kingfishers are no longer extinct in the wild.

Thanks to the dedicated work of a global team of scientists to restore these birds to the wild, Guam kingfishers, or sihek, Todiramphus cinnamominus, are flying free for the first time since the late 1980s. Although sihek are now on Palmyra Atoll — not on their native home of Guam — this release is an important step closer to their eventual return home. (You can read more about that here and here).

Sihek flying out of a temporary soft-release aviary into its forever home in the forests of Palmyra Atoll. (Credit: Smithsonian NZCBI, image appears here with permission.)

“Today, the sihek were set free from their aviaries!” rejoiced Yolonda Topasna, Program Coordinator at the Department of Aquatics and Wildlife Resources with the Guam Department of Agriculture.