GENERAL NEWS - Flamingo's to Oz - W.W.T join forces with the Auckland Zoo to incubate and rear Flamingos

Last year saw the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (W.W.T.) join forces with the Auckland Zoo in Australia in order to attempt to artificially incubate and then rear Flamingos. The importance of successful artificial incubation in the case of Greater Flamingos can’t be underestimated as natural breeding success is usually limited by egg loss from nest sites in the breeding colony – pairs compete for nest sites, often leading to eggs being ‘kicked off’ nests!

Therefore, in 2000, this natural egg loss was reduced by replacing the real eggs with resin dummies. The real eggs were then artificially incubated in Brinsea Polyhatch incubators for 26 days of the 28 day
incubation period.

At the pre-pip stage, eggs were returned to their natural or surrogate parents for hatching and rearing. The result was that in 2000, a total of 27 chicks were reared at W.W.T. Slimbridge, representing an increase in
productivity of 170%!

With the huge success of the operation in 2000, for this year the W.W.T. plan to artificially incubate and hatch at least 20 eggs of Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber roseus) for the subsequent hand-rearing
of the chicks.

When hatched the chicks will be housed in W.W.T’.s quarantine facilities until the time when the youngest bird is weaned at 60 days old. The crèche will then be flown to Auckland Zoo in New Zealand where they will be housed in a brand new conservation exhibit. Once in New Zealand, these birds will be celebrated as the only flamingo flock in the whole of Australasia.

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