Having no luck with the chicks on Tinder?
You might want to head over to Jurong Bird Park instead for a fresh slate of candidates who are equally bound to make your heart melt.
Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), which manages the bird park, has hatched over 100 precious new chicks since that you won’t be able to resist swiping right to.
In a video posted by WRS last week, it announced that it had bred 100 hatchlings in their Breeding and Research Centre, inclusive of over 20 species threatened by extinction.
These new introductions include a pair of critically endangered red-fronted macaws.
It’s indeed a miracle of conservation, especially since it was done amid a global pandemic.
However, if you are trying to pursue these new chicks on the block, you should raise your game as they’ve been lovingly hand-raised by their human caretakers.
So one will definitely need to gain their approval for your advances.
There are only four hand hearers in the entire park, explained Mr Mark Rusli, a junior animal care officer.
They start work at 6am everyday and for some species, they have to stay up till midnight to care for them.
Talk about setting the bar high for future romantic advances!
In these babies’ first week, they are very fragile and have to be monitored carefully.
Once the chicks pass their first week, Mr Rusli said that’s usually it’s a good sign that they will survive all the way.
“It is quite rewarding to watch a chick develop and grow and eventually be released to the aviaries,” he said.
This is especially so with threatened species, when efforts have gone into contributing to their conservation and repopulation.
“For a zoo, it is important to breed animals, especially threatened species, to increase genetic diversity,” the care officer elaborated.
Their ultimate goal is to add to and replenish wild populations.
For this year, Mr Rusli’s most excited about the red-fronted macaws, especially since there are only 200 of them left in the wild.
This year, they’ve already had 2 chicks of the rare species.
Some netizens who visited the bird park recently also offered their reviews of these new chicks — and they were mostly positive, so presumably it’s worth that second date.
They were very small indeed, said a reviewer.
Others heaped praise on the hand rearers, who are gatekeepers of the chicks’ hearts and lives:
Caring for any young mammal (human or otherwise) is no small feat, as their lives are at stake. The stakes are higher when the species is categorised to be endangered.
A lot of skill, sweat and heart goes into the caring for not just the new chicks, but the rest of the precious birds in Jurong Bird Park, so we’re glad that some appreciation is being shown to the rearers.
We hope that those who give these sweet birds a chance would enjoy their date in the park. You’ll still need to pay for your own entry ticket, though!
Featured images adapted from Facebook.
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