The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation announced yesterday the hatching of red-headed vulture chick (Asian king vulture – sarcogyps calvus) – the first of its kind in Thailand in about three decades – in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in the northern province of Uthai Thani.
Surveillance cameras installed near the nest captured images of the chick using its beak to crack open the egg shell and emerge into the sunlight.
The department’s director-general, Atthaphon Charoenchansa, said that the hatching of the red-headed vulture chick marks an important step in the department’s attempts to revive the population of the vulture in Thailand, after it had not been seen in the wild for about 30 years.
The chick comes from an egg laid by “Ming”, the female vulture raised at the wildlife breeding station in Huai Kha Kheng, after it had mated with “Pok”, a male vulture from the zoo in Nakhon Ratchasima province, on November 23rd last year. The two vultures had been together for over a year before they mated.
The 5-year project to increase the number of vultures in the wild is a cooperation between the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, the Zoological Organisation of Thailand, Kasetsart University and the Seub Nakasathien Foundation.
