Kingfisher has a lizard for dinner (Saint Louis Zoo)

These birds are strictly meat-eaters. Their favorite menu items are insects, lizards, crabs, and shrimp. Here the male kingfisher prepares his dinner by thwacking the lizard a few times on the branch before swallowing it whole. (Zookeepers thaw frozen prey items for the birds as part of their daily diet.)

There are only 113 Micronesian kingfishers left on the planet and all of them are housed in zoos and breeding facilities.

Like many of the bird species on Guam, the Micronesian kingfisher fell victim to the brown tree snake which was accidentally introduced to the island in the 1940s. By 1981, Micronesian kingfisher numbers had declined to approximately 3,000 birds. When the kingfisher was first designated as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1984, less than 50 kingfishers remained in the wild. Twenty-one birds were then captured and transported to U.S. zoos, as captive breeding programs were considered to be the last hedge against extinction. An additional eight birds were imported to the U.S. in 1986, and the last sighting of a Micronesian kingfisher in the wild occurred in 1988. Today, 113 individuals live in 19 AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) institutions and at the Guam Department of Aquatic and Wildlife
Resources breeding facility. The species is managed by an AZA Species Survival Plan.

See more about this endangered bird: http://www.stlzoo.org/animals/abouttheanimals/birds/kingfishershornbillsbeeea...

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• kingfisher
• endangered
• bird
• Guam
• island
• brown tree snake
• St. Louis Zoo