Effort to return Guam Sihek into wild relaunches

It was last July when KUAM traveled to the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas to capture the Sihek Recovery Program’s international effort to return the Guam Kingfisher into the wild. Almost a year later, the process begins ag ain with a female chick hatching at the Kansas Zoo.

Yolonda Topasna, Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources, said, "We have a chance and none of us should give up as this team of partnerships has not given up on the Guam Sihek."

The first chick hatched from an egg transported from Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio. There are nine zoos across the U.S. taking part in the breeding program for the hopeful release on Palmyra Atoll this year.

"Palmyra is the solution to sihek’s survival. And it provides us the next steps towards getting our own birds returns to Guam one day. We are very hopeful," she added.

But first, they’ll make their journey from Kansas to Palmyra Atoll, taken care of by a team of specialist bird keepers working around the clock to hand-raise up to nine chicks.

The last wild sighting of the sihek was in 1988. There are only 141 Guam sihek left in the world, all under human care. There are just 45 breeding females left.

"We're working with live animals, so anything can happen. If there's a delay or something that they have to deal with, the teams are so versed at doing so. We'll have to do a bit of wait-and-see at times," said Topasna.

"There's been suitability studies over the years, captive breeding efforts, tons of meetings and teams on the ground literally moving precious cargo across more than 4,000 miles to their final destination. It's a huge deal. This release has been anticipated for many many years."

And stay tuned on Monday as KUAM collaborates with those partners working to return the Guam Sihek into the wild. We’ll be launching a daily survey on our Instagram where you get the chance to select the names for the Guam Sihek being hand-raised for eventual release.