At least five tara iti chicks have hatched at Auckland Zoo, after staff successfully incubated and cared for eggs from one of the country\u2019s rarest bird species.<\/p>\n
The tara iti, also known as the New Zealand Fairy Tern, is the country’s most endangered breeding bird. As of July, there were fewer than 40 adult tara iti left in the wild, including just 10 known breeding females.<\/p>\n
1News was there to capture a rare moment as one of the eggs hatched. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo the fifth chick has literally just happened, right, just happened. The fifth chick has just hatched right in front of our eyes,\u201d Auckland Zoo keeper Devon said.<\/p>\n
Department of Conservation programme lead Alex Wilson said the species population was at a critical point.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t get more endangered than them,\u201d she said. “A lot like most of our endangered species, predation, habitat loss, a lot to do with human disturbance.” <\/p>\n
The chicks are being cared for inside a specialist breeding lab at Auckland Zoo, where staff are working around the clock to give them the best possible start.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does feel quite a heavy weight some days,\u201d Devon said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really cool though, because Auckland Zoo works so closely with the Department of Conservation and it\u2019s such a big team effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
The newly hatched chicks are just days old. In the wild, they would normally rest on sand, but in the lab, they are placed on towels designed to mimic natural terrain and help strengthen their legs.<\/p>\n
The chicks are fed every 90 minutes, with the amount of fish carefully calculated based on their age and body weight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey get nine feeds a day, every hour and a half,\u201d Devon said. \u201cAnd the amount of fish they get fed is based on their age and a percentage of their body weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the lab offers protection during the earliest stages of life, the risks increase once the birds are released back into the wild.<\/p>\n
Tara Iti breed on some of Aotearoa’s busiest beaches, where human activity can threaten nests and chicks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re on our beaches and you see fenced-off areas, please stay out of them,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got dogs on the beach, keep them on a lead or under control. And then at home, you can do other things like trapping predators. It helps everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least five tara iti chicks have hatched at Auckland Zoo, after staff successfully incubated and cared for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50,1389,273,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-193040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-conservation","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}