Rare North Island brown kiwi hatches at the Smithsonian's National Zoo

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The National Zoo welcomed a new kiwi chick on March 7 2008. The chick whose sex has yet to be determined by DNA testing is the third chick to ever hatch at the National Zoo. The first hatching occurred in 1975 and was the first to occur outside of Ne ...
The National Zoo welcomed a new kiwi chick on March 7, 2008. The chick, whose sex has yet to be determined by DNA testing, is the third chick to ever hatch at the National Zoo. The first hatching occurred in 1975 and was the first to occur outside of New Zealand. Kiwis are endangered and are extremely rare to see in captivity -- only four zoos outside of New Zealand have successfully bred kiwis, and only three US zoos exhibit them, including the National Zoo which has exhibited kiwis since 1967. Credit: Jessie Cohen, Smithsonian's National Zoo

Early Friday morning, March 7, one of the world’s most endangered species—a North Island brown kiwi—hatched at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo Bird House. Keepers had been incubating the egg for five weeks, following a month long incubation by the chick’s father, carefully monitoring it for signs of pipping: the process in which the chick starts to break through the shell. The chick remained in an isolet for four days and is now in a specially designed brooding box.


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