Bird project soars at St. Louis Zoo

An artificial insemination project for birds at the St. Louis Zoo promises to help the endangered common piping guan

By Environmental News Network staff

A groundbreaking bird conservation project is taking flight at St. Louis Zoo.

After five years of research, scientists have conducted a successful artificial insemination project with common piping guans, a project that could help save one of the most endangered and least studied families of birds in neotropical America.

"Call me the champion for the cracids," said Michael Macek, curator of birds at the St. Louis Zoo and director of the project.

Closely related to turkeys, chickens, grouse and other game birds, the cracid family of feathered game birds has experienced a significant decline in recent years. Thirty-eight percent of 49 cracid species are considered endangered, making them the Western Hemisphere's most endangered group of birds.

According to Macek, much of that decline has to do with their size. "Large birds tend to be more vulnerable to hunting and habitat loss," he said. While some cracid species can tolerate moderate forest alteration in their range, which extends throughout the Latin American tropics, most cracids disappear when their natural environment is altered.

Cracid recovery efforts have been challenging because the birds mature slowly and have low reproduction rates, with clutch sizes of only one or two eggs a year.

Relying on impregnation techniques commonly used in the domestic poultry industry, Macek and colleagues hatched two common piping guans, the first members of the cracid family to be bred through artificial insemination.

St. Louis Zoo staff successfully hatched two common piping guans by means of artificial

But breeding a wild common guan was not as easy as breeding its farmed cousin.

"We thought this would be a relatively simple process," Macek said. "Domesticated chickens are more used to being handled and as a result their semen is easier to collect."

While chickens have undergone thousands of years of selective breeding to lay hundreds of eggs a year, piping guans are not nearly as productive. Since the guans hatch only a couple of babies a year, scientists have a short window of time to get it right.

Although the zoo project involves common piping guans, which are not at risk, it could serve as a model for future artificial insemination projects for the birds' endangered cousins.

"The real value of this project is to see if we can freeze the semen, store it for a period of time and inseminate the female," Macek said. "Because different kinds of semen respond differently to the freezing, it's a very complicated process."

The zoo plans to establish a supply of frozen guan semen, which would enable scientists to exchange artificial insemination techniques to zoos in Central or South American countries where there is better access to endangered cracid species.

"We also help to send wild bird semen to captive birds in order to replenish their wild blood," Macek said.

Several populations of endangered wild birds, such as peregrine falcons and California condors, were reduced to a few individuals before they were bred in captivity, Macek noted. "This could be a technology that could help endangered birds if they reach such low population levels," he said.

Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

The bigger the brain, the sweeter the bird song
November 20, 2000
Sparrow decline alarms British bird-lovers
November 6, 2000
When a bird's eye goes astray
August 16, 1999

Breakthrough in dolphin research by Hong Kong scientists
Australia clone work targets endangered species
Elephant conceives by artificial insemination

Cracid Specialist Group
Saint Louis Zoo

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.