Harvested cork also helps preserve endangered species

We received the following email from Peter Shannon, the Curator of Birds at Albuquerque Biological Park. We love hearing how our cork is used, especially when we learn that even after the cork is harvested, it continues to play a part in preserving highly endangered species.  

From Peter Shannon:
"In the mid 1980's, zoos were called upon to assist in saving the Guam kingfisher from extinction. 29 birds were collected from the island of Guam, and by 1988 the species was extinct in the wild. Over the past 25 years, zoos have managed to breed the species and increase its numbers to about 135 individuals.

Knowing very little about the natural history of the species at the time, we struggled with development of the best husbandry practices to successfully propagate them. One thing we did know was that once a pair was established, they required soft, rotten logs in order to excavate a nest cavity. A significant challenge for many of the zoos has been finding the "right" logs that the birds would be able to use.

For some reason I recently came across an article about duck decoys, and the cork blocks that carvers use to make them. The internal wheels started turning and I bought some of the low density cork blocks to begin experimenting. We built some open fronted boxes, cut the cork blocks to size and filled the boxes several layers deep with the cork panels.

We have two pairs of the kingfishers at the zoo here in Albuquerque. Within days of installing our cork "nest logs", both pairs began excavating nest cavities. And the day before yesterday, we had our first kingfisher egg in one of the "logs".

It will be three weeks before we know if it will hatch.

Just thought you would be interested to know that not only is cork forest management making a difference in preserving valuable wildlife habitat, the harvested materials may also be making a difference in preserving other highly endangered species. If these cork nest logs are successful, not only will the captive population of kingfishers benefit, the strategy may make a difference in facilitating return of the species to the wild someday. As Martha Stewart would say, "it's a good thing:."" 


Peter also shared with us a little history about the Guam Kingfisher.
"In the short form, here is the tale.......... In the 1970's, birds on Guam were disappearing at an alarming rate. It turned out that sometime at the end of World War II, the brown tree snake from Indonesia found its way onto Guam (probably hitching a ride on cargo ships). A largely nocturnal species, it feeds on eggs and nestlings and female birds sitting on nests. The birds on Guam had not evolved with this type of predator and had no natural defense strategies to survive this invasion. By the early 1980's, several species were already functionally extinct -- only males remained. This is when zoos stepped in to bring kingfishers and rails into captivity. Within a few years, both species were extinct in the wild. Control or total elimination of the tree snake has proven to be challenging. There is still no comprehensive technique for the snake problem. But in the meantime, zoos continue to do their part to keep these species going until sometime in the future the problem can be solved. Right now, there are agencies exploring the possibility of introducing kingfishers to similar island habitats until such time as they can be returned to Guam".

If you are interested in reading more, "And No Birds Sing" by Mark Jaffe is a good history of the Guam story.

Awesome! Thanks to Peter Shannon, Curator of Birds at the Albuquerque Biological Park in New Mexico for sharing this story with us.