[caption id="attachment_194329" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
The female oriental pied hornbill inside a nest box at the NZP. [/caption]
Dimapur, July 10 (EMN): After trying to breed the scarce hornbill for five years, wildlife workers at the Nagaland Zoological Park (NZP) at Rangapahar of Dimapur have finally bred hornbills ‘in captivity’ on Tuesday.
A press statement from the NZP informed that a female oriental pied hornbill emerged with one chick from an artificial nest box (an enclosure provided for animals to nest in) ‘in which it had enclosed itself since April 2018.’
“Hornbills have a very unique nesting behaviour. After mating the female goes inside the nest and plaster the opening of the nest cavity from inside leaving just a small opening wide enough to receive food from the male outside who feeds both the chicks and the mother till they emerge from the nest box.
Nagaland Zoological Park had been attempting to breed hornbills in captivity for last five years however it was not successfully. The successful breeding of Oriental Pied Hornbill in Nagaland Zoological Park has given us a lot of knowledge about their behaviour. Since Hornbills pair for life the pair is expected to continue to breed in the park,” the statement read.
The RZP is trying to identify other compatible pairs for breeding in the future and start a conservation breeding programme for oriental pied hornbills, it added.
