The San Francisco Zoo's Chilean flamingo flock is 41 birds strong and had not successfully hatched a chick in nine years [1]. This week it hatched four [1].
The solution turned out to be structural rather than veterinary. 'We made some adjustments to their environment over the past several months by installing a mesh netting enclosure over the habitat,' said Quinn Brown, the zoo's curator of birds [1].
Netting over an open flamingo habitat is a way of telling the birds that nothing is going to come down out of the sky. Flamingos nest in the open, on mounds of mud, and a flock that does not feel safe does not commit to a clutch.
Nine years of no chicks, then a roof, then four [1].
