If you enter Tama Zoo and take the first left fork in the road, you'll find a row of cages displaying various types of birds.

One of the exhibits, Black Stork enclosure, displays Black Stork Bar-headed Goose and their offspring, as well as Indian Geese and Swan Goose being artificially reared.

Two chicks hatched from Black Stork black stork enclosure on April 26, 2013. The parents were an experienced pair who had raised many chicks before, so we watched them raise the chicks naturally without any worries. However, despite their experience, after the chicks hatched, they became very aggressive towards animal keeper, even charging at them when we entered the cage to put food in.

Around that time, seven chicks of Swan Goose and Bar-headed Goose Goose, which were being artificially incubated in the neighboring brooder, hatched and were growing rapidly. With seven rapidly growing goose chicks in such a small cage, they were bound to lack exercise.

So, we decided to bring these seven birds together in the largest Black Stork enclosure in the area. We had heard that they wouldn't mind each other much if they were different species, but we wanted to be prepared to separate them immediately if the Black Stork attacked, so we observed them for a while after they were brought together. To our surprise, they didn't seem to mind each other at all.

Black Stork nest in trees and primarily feed on animal matter such as fish and aquatic organisms. Geese, on the other hand, live on land or in water and mainly feed on plant matter such as grass. Although they lived close to each other, they were different species with different lifestyles, so it seems there were no conflicts between them.

Both of Black Stork raised on the nesting platform fledged by July 3rd, and now all three species can sometimes be seen together at the watering hole... Don't miss this limited-time cohabitation until the geese grow a little bigger!

Photo above: Three types of chicks living together
In the photo: Bar-headed Goose (background) and Swan Goose (front).
Photo below: A newly fledged black Black Stork chick and its parents.

[Junko Ishii, Wildlife Conservatio Center Tama Zoo]

(August 9, 2013)