PRAGUE: Zookeepers in Prague sometimes have to become puppeteers to save newborn birds rejected by their parents. This was the case for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick hatched three weeks ago.
Bird keeper Antonín 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.
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.
Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding, which it won’t if it gets used to human interaction.
He explained that the puppet doesn’t 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.
