{"id":37475,"date":"2025-07-25T23:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T23:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/37475\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T23:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T23:44:13","slug":"zookeepers-turn-into-puppeteers-to-save-baby-vultures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/37475\/","title":{"rendered":"Zookeepers turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zookeepers in\u00a0Prague\u00a0sometimes have to become puppeteers <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/07\/10\/us-news\/deer-rescued-from-ocean-by-lifeguards-along-central-florida-coastline\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to save newborn<\/a> birds rejected by their parents. This was the case for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick hatched three weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>Bird keeper Anton\u00edn Vaidl said Thursday that when a dummy egg disappeared from the nest, it signaled to keepers that the parents were not ready to care for their two babies, despite doing so in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p>A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird. AP<\/p>\n<p>The first-born is being kept in a box and fed using a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird, while another is expected to hatch in the next few days.<\/p>\n<p>Another lesser yellow-headed vulture is expected to hatch in the next few days. AP<\/p>\n<p>Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding, which it won\u2019t if it gets used to human interaction.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that the puppet doesn\u2019t have to be a perfect replica of an adult bird because the chick responds to certain signals, such as the pale orange coloration on its featherless head and neck.<\/p>\n<p>Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding. AP<\/p>\n<p>Lesser yellow-headed vultures live in the wild in\u00a0Latin America and Mexico. Prague Zoo is one of only three zoos in Europe that breed them.<\/p>\n<p>In the past, the park successfully applied this treatment <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/07\/13\/us-news\/no-bull-these-are-the-wildest-recent-exotic-animal-rescues-in-nyc-li\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to save the critically endangered<\/a>\u00a0Javan green magpie\u00a0and two rhinoceros hornbill chicks. The puppet-feeding technique is applicable for birds that live in pairs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe method has been working well,\u201d Vaidl said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens with the vultures.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zookeepers in\u00a0Prague\u00a0sometimes have to become puppeteers to save newborn birds rejected by their parents. This was the case&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3755,1147,7223,30517,30518,79,201,965,30519],"class_list":{"0":"post-37475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-rescue","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-birds","11":"tag-prague","12":"tag-puppets","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife","15":"tag-world-news","16":"tag-zoos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}