For the first time in more than a decade, there’s a brown kiwi chick at the San Diego Zoo.
Caring for these endangered birds is not an easy feat. In fact, the San Diego Zoo is one of just seven U.S. zoos working with brown kiwis.
The female chick hatched March 11, marking the zoo’s twelfth chick since it first successfully reared a brown kiwi in 1983.
The flightless bird doesn’t feed its chicks. It’s common for newborns not to eat for the first six days.
Staff at the Avian Propagation Center will monitor the chick’s diet and weight gain for the next several weeks.
Native to New Zealand, the kiwi is a protected bird.
Eighty percent of kiwi habitat has been destroyed in the country, prompting the need for conservation efforts by zoos around the world including here in San Diego.
