Historic Milestone: Three National Aviary Gaum Kingfishers are on Palmyra Atoll!

Guam Kingfishers were once one of 12 native forest bird species whom called the island of Guam home. Now, it's one of only two to have survived the wrath of the invasive Brown Tree Snake.
Known locally as sihek, the Guam Kingfisher hasn't existed in the wild for four decades. Biologists rescued the remaining wild population in the late 1980s, bringing them into expert care. This rendered the species Extinct in the Wild, with avian experts hopeful to someday release the descendants of the last Guam sihek into the wild themselves.
These descendants have grown under the expert care of an Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan®, or SSP. The National Aviary has been part of their SSP, as well as the Sihek Recovery Program, for many years, with the eventual goal of introducing a trail population of the species to Palmyra Atoll, a Brown Tree Snake-free island located about 6,000 km from Guam.
The final plan? Growing the wild population, and seeking to downgrade their Extinct in the Wild status to Critically Endangered - which could make them the third bird species to ever do so, behind the only other endemic Guam forest bird species to survive the Brown Teee Snake: the ko'ko also know as the Guam Rail.
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